


Atlantis Café - The First Adventure

by Soledad



Series: Atlantis Café [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Realities, F/M, Once Torchwood Always Torchwood, Some Nightmares Never End, Tosh Is A Genius In Every Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7742641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story takes place two weeks after "Atlantis Café - The Beginning". Ianto gets to travel via puddle-jumper and is involuntarily reunited with some old enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**PART 1 – THE GHOST SHIP OF ATLANTIS**

Two weeks later, Ianto is delivering Sergeant Charles Lenoir, the Canadian Control Room technician – generally known and loved as Chuck among soldiers, scientists and Athosians alike – the usual thermos of coffee, when something on the man’s console starts beeping. Sheppard and McKay are coming from the conference room, arguing about something as usual, and stop at once to see what it might be.

Lenoir checks his console – twice – and then he looks up at Sheppard with a frown.

“Colonel, we got a new contact,” he reports. “Looks like a ship.”

know,” Sheppard says, exasperated. Maybe there’s a Wraith ship in the area.”

“I’m not reading anything,” McKay replies tiredly.

“Are we certain it’s the same planet?” Ianto asks. “Perhaps the energy burst shifted our position.”

“No,” McKay says. “According to our instruments, we haven’t moved at all.”

“What do you want me to believe, Rodney, that Atlantis just disappeared?” Sheppard demands.

It’s McKay’s turn now to force himself to patience. “Look, I don’t know. Just give me a second and I’ll figure it out, all right? In the meantime I’ve managed to localise the source of the energy reading. It’s coming from a hold on Deck 9.”

“All right, keep trying to reach Atlantis,” Sheppard says. “We’ll check it out. Send Ronon down to help us.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They meet up with Ronon and cautiously make their way along Deck 9 when McKay radioes them again.

“Sheppard, I think I’ve got something,” he says. It’s not very informative, and Sheppard rolls his eyes.

“And that would be? Details, Rodney – preferably in monosyllables, so that I can understand.” He’s not that stupid,

“How far out?” Sheppard asks, his tactically oriented mind considering several defensive probabilities already.

“It’s in orbit,” Lenoir replies in honest bafflement. Sheppard frowns, too.

“Well, how come we didn’t detect it?” he demands. Lenoir spreads his hands in confusion.

“I don’t know, sir” he admits. “We didn’t even detect the hyperspace window. It just… it just appeared out of nowhere.

Ianto feels cold shivers running down along his spine. Wasn’t it how the Battle of Canary Wharf has started? With an unidentified ship appearing out of nowhere? But there isn’t any spatial rift above Atlantis, is there? So it’s probably something entirely different. Or so he hopes.

McKay, in the meantime, has shooed the technician away from his console and is now working on it himself.

“Hang on a second,” he says distractedly. “We’re getting I.F.F. It’s the _Daedalus_!”

“The _Daedalus_?” Ianto repeats in surprise. “How can that be? They’re on their way back to Earth.” For indeed, the _Daedalus_ had arrived with a great amount of raw material and spare parts to help repair the damage caused by the growing Wraith ship in the middle of Atlantis, only to turn around at once and go back for even more supplies.

McKay shrugs. “Well, they _were_ – or they were _supposed_ to be.”

“They wouldn’t turn back without contacting us first,” Ianto says, knowing Colonel Caldwell, who’s a strictly by-the-book officer.

“Perhaps a malfunction in the board systems?” Lenoir suggests.

Ianto shakes his head. “Doctor McKay dispatched Doctor Zelenka to oversee the general system check before departure. If _he_ says everything was in best working order, then it was.”

Sheppard shrugs. “Well, we can always ask. Open up a channel, Sergeant.”

Lenoir activates his controls and points to Sheppard to indicate that the channel is open. Sheppard activates his headset radio. “ _Daedalus_ , this is Atlantis, please come in.” There’s no reply. Sheppard tries again. “ _Daedalus_ , please respond.”

McKay hurries over to the other console, checks something – then he looks up in shock. “They’re not gonna answer.”

“Why not?” Sheppard echoes everyone’s unspoken question.

“‘Cause I’m not reading any life signs,” McKay replies, pale like death itself.

Sheppard raises an eyebrow, more to cover his own shock than to provoke their head geek. “What are you telling me, Rodney? This thing flew here by itself?”

As expected – and probably intended by Sheppard – McKay quickly overcomes his shock in behalf of righteous indignation.

“I don’t know how they got here,” he snaps, “but there’s no-one on board. At least, no-one _alive_.”

“So, what are we doing now?” Lenoir asks.

“ _You’ll_ keep an eye on that thing,” Sheppard replies. “ _I’m_ gonna snatch a puddle-jumper, alert my team and take a closer look.”

“Shouldn’t you consult Mr. Woolsey about this step first?” Ianto asks mildly. Sheppard shrugs.

“Nah, matters like this are well within my authority,” he gives Ianto a shrewd look. “Have you ever flown a puddle-jumper?”

“Unfortunately, my artificial gene doesn’t provide me with a pilot licence by default,” Ianto replies wryly. 

Sheppard rolls his eyes. “I meant as a _passenger_.”

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure yet,” Ianto says. He _did_ have several invitations to visit the Athosians on the mainland but haven’t so far found the time to do so. 

Sheppard slaps him on the shoulder jovially.

“Well, this must be your lucky day, then,” he says. “Teyla is on the mainland, attending to some harvest festival or whatnot, so I’m short one man. You can come with me in her stead.”

“And what possible use could I be for your team, Colonel?” Ianto asks. “Granted, I can fire a gun and use a computer, but I’m neither a soldier, nor a scientist.”

“You’re a little bit of both,” Sheppard answers. “ _And_ if I take you with me, Woolsey can’t complain that I’m acting on my own again.”

Ianto thinks about it for a second or two; then he promptly agrees. He’s dreamed about flying in space aboard a puddle-jumper from his first day on, and this is the best excuse he can find, without asking for favours.

“All right,” he says. Sheppard grins.

“Great. D’you think you can manage to put on a uniform, for a change? Preferably one complete with a gun holster?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ianto replies with dignity and all but runs out of the Control room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Barely half an hour later, he’s sitting in a puddle-jumper with Sheppard, McKay and Ronon Dex, geared up and properly armed for a potentially dangerous mission. Still, he feels a lot less nervous about it than he would feel about Weevil hunting or any other Torchwood-related action. Perhaps because he knows that Sheppard is a professional, having done black ops in the past. Perhaps it’s the looming presence of Ronon Dex, the ultimate survivor – unlike most people, Ianto isn’t intimidated in Ronon’s presence. He values the man for what he is: an almost-guarantee for the team coming back alive.

So no, he’s not nervous… well, perhaps a little, but in a good way. In fact, he feels like a child in a candy shop. The little spaceship is about the coolest thing he’s ever seen, and that includes the _Daedalus_ and the Stargate.

As soon as they are in the air, Lenoir radioes them from the Control room.

“Colonel, we just got confirmation from Stargate Command,” he reports. “The _Daedalus_ is in the Milky Way, on course and on schedule. They expect to reach Earth in two days.”

“Understood,” Sheppard acknowledges; then he breaks the connection and looks out of the front window with a frown. “Interesting.”

“So that’s not the _Daedalus_ , then?” Ronon asks, a little confused.

Sheppard shrugs. “Well, not unless it can be in two places at once.”

“Can it be the _Apollo_ or one of the other ships?” Ianto asks, remembering that Earth’s starship programme has made considerable headway in the recent years.

McKay shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be sending _Daedalus_ ’s I.F.F,” he says. “Plus it doesn’t explain how they got here or why we’re not picking up life sign readings.”

“True enough,” Ianto admits. “So, what now?”

“We need to learn more about this ship and where she has come,” Sheppard decides. “I’m taking us in for a closer look.”

He steers the jumper to a close pass underneath the ship. Eager to see more, Ianto raises from his seat and walks forward until he stands between Sheppard and McKay, holding onto the back pf Sheppard’s seat. All three of them lean forward and crane their necks to look up.

“What are those long black marks on the underside?” Ianto asks. He does have an inkling, but he still hopes he’s wrong.

“Scorch marks, I’d say,” McKay replies.

Ianto hates being right in such things, but in for a penny, in for a pound, he wants the whole answer now.

“What do you think – weapons fire?” he guesses.

“Yeah,” Sheppard surveys the damage with narrowing eyes. “Wherever she’s been, she’s been through some pretty hard times.”

“What kind of weapon it could have been, I wonder,” Ianto muses. “The marks are different from those of Wraith energy weapons… or the ones caused by Ancient drones.”

Sheppard shoots him a baffled look. “And you’d know that – how exactly?” Ianto shrugs.

“Archive vids. Archive photos,” he explains. “Photographic memory. Archivist training. Lots of filing. It all adds up.”

Sheppard pulls a face. “I’ll take your word for _that_.”

They’re interrupted by the beeping sound of McKay’s console, and Ianto suppresses an involuntary shiver. In his experience, unexpected beeping sounds never mean good news. Even if they aren’t caused by Jack’s wrist strap.

“What’s that?” Sheppard, too, sounds irritated. Perhaps beeping sounds announcing bad news are a universal constant.

McKay checks the readings. “I’m picking up an energy reading,” he replies with a frown. “It’s coming from the ship.”

“Is she powering up her weapons?” Ianto asks in concern. The weapons of the _Daedalus_ are powerful enough to shoot a puddle-jumper in pieces, unless the shields are raised. Which at the moment they are _not_.

“It doesn’t seem so,” McKay answers, “but I have no idea what’s causing it.”

“Perhaps we should find a way in and look for the source,” Ianto suggests.

Sheppard considers it for a moment, then he nods. “Good idea. Rodney, can you get the bay doors open?”

“If the ship’s command systems are as familiar as the rest of it, it shouldn’t be a problem,” McKay is already typing away on his console. “Just get the jumper into position, Colonel, and leave the rest to me.”

Sheppard does as he’s told; Ianto watches with fascination as the jumper rises up in front of the _Daedalus_ and stops level with the bay. He’s travelled aboard the ship but never seen it from the outside before, and now he admits that it’s an impressive sight.

“Done,” McKay announces, and the bay doors open noiselessly – which is something of a disappointment. Ianto misses the creaking an thudding sound he’d normally associate with such large, metallic wings. He knows, of course, that there’s no sound in the vacuum of space, but theoretical knowledge and first-hand experience are two very different cups of tea. This little scene makes it glaringly obvious, just how different outer space really is.

“Hmmm,” Sheppard says, giving the mostly empty bay a searching look. “No F-302s. Strange.”

“There is a jumper, though,” Ianto points at the single lozenge-shaped little ship parked on the right side.

“You sure there’s no-one else inside?” Ronon growls behind them. The big Satedan practically towering over them, which would make most men nervous. Ianto feels safe and protected instead.

“As far as I can tell,” McKay corrects. “No guarantees, though.” 

There never are any.

“All right,” Sheppard says. “Gear up, people. We’re going in.”

For a moment, he sounds eerily like Jack at the beginning of a field mission. Ianto feels a slight pang in his heart and is still fighting to get it under control while Sheppard flies the jumper inside and lands it next to the other one. They all shoulder their backpacks, ready their weapons, and then the team disembarks.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The bay is dark and cold, and so is the corridor behind it. As a rule, Ianto isn’t bothered by poorly-heated places – the Hub was cold _and_ damp, after all, and he practically lived in there – but this is a bit much, even for him.

“Are the environmental systems down?” he asks McKay, shivering. The Atlantis uniform isn’t nearly as much protection against the cold as one of his suits would be.

“Some of them are barely registering,” the scientist consults his computer tablet distractedly. “The ship’s operating on emergency power.”

“But you still picking up that weird energy… thing?” Ronon asks.

McKay isn’t even looking at him. “That’s right.”

“Can you do something about it?” Sheppard is shivering, too. “It’s freezing here.”

McKay does look up at that, and his look isn’t friendly. “Oh, sure! If you could _perhaps_ hold out until I get to Engineering? You aren’t the only one freezing here, you know.”

After a short but intense glaring match Sheppard backs off.

“All right,” he says. “You and Ronon are together. Ianto, you and me, we’re gonna check out the Bridge. Radio me if you find anything.”

They head off in different directions. The corridors are eerily familiar… and also cold and eerily dark. The only sources of light are the torches attached to their rifles, but that’s enough to find their way to the bridge.

“No bodies in here,” Sheppard says, relieved, after shining the light from his rifle around. “That’s… good.”

Ianto isn’t sure he agrees. An empty tomb is still a tomb, and the dead silence sends cold shivers down his spine that don’t have anything to do with the fritzing environmental systems. He shines his torch around, too… and finds the ship’s name plate on the wall. It’s a familiar one.

“Colonel,” he says quietly. “It seems the ship _is_ the _Daedalus_ , after all.”

As Sheppard moves over to take a look, the lights suddenly come on, making them jump a little. They’re both nervous.

“McKay, was that you?” Sheppard asks.

“Of _course_ it was me,” McKay’s irritated voice comes through their headsets. “Who else would it be? D’you think we’ve got a ghost on board or something?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Ianto mutters darkly. Sheppard gives him a funny look.

“What’s our status?” the colonel then asks their head geek.

“I’ve restored basic power to most of the ship,” McKay replies. “It should be warming up any second now.” It’s a promise that makes Ianto very happy, even though his shivering has more to do with the oppressing atmosphere than with the state of life support on board.

“Good,” Sheppard says. “Check on that energy reading. Try to figure out what it is, all right?”

McKay sighs and Ianto can almost see his exasperated eyeroll. “Thank you, Captain Obvious; I’d never have thought of _that_ without your brilliant suggestion,” he answers scathingly and breaks the connection.

Ianto, in the meantime, walks over to the communications station and looks down at the abandoned console. There’s still a light flashing, showing that the station is on standby.

“We should check the ship’s log,” he suggests. “Perhaps we can learn that way what happened to them.”

“The _Daedalus_ ’s logs are password-protected,” Sheppard points out.

Ianto gives him a bland look. “So?”

“You mean you can override them?” it’s hard to tell whether Sheppard is more shocked or more relieved that they might, after all, learn something about the situation.

Ianto shrugs. “Sure. I was given sufficient authority when my government assigned me to the Atlantis expedition… besides, I’m a fairly good hacker,” he calls the last log entry up on the wall screen. “Here it comes.”

To their surprise, a vaguely Asian-looking woman in her mid-thirties appears on the screen. She has almond eyes, a helmet of short, shiny black hair, parted in the middle – and she’s wearing a standard _Daedalus_ uniform, with the rank insignia of a colonel.

“Preparations are almost complete,” she says. “We’ve beamed down the last of our supplies and any equipment we think might be useful. I’ll be taking the last of the F-302s down myself. Of course, we haven’t had time to do a proper survey of the planet’s surface but it seems habitable enough: plenty of fresh water, arable soil – not that different from our own. I realise our chance of rescue is slim, but it’s become obvious that we no longer have a choice. This is Colonel Sobol, Commander of the _Daedalus_ , signing off.”

The entry ends, and Ianto looks at Sheppard with a frown. “Do you recognise her?”

Sheppard shakes his head. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. In fact, I’ve never heard of a Colonel of that name being involved with the Stargate programme. Hell, I never heard of _any_ colonel of that name at all.”

“Alternate realities?” Ianto guesses. The thought makes him almost physically ill. Alternate realities, that always reminds him of Canary Wharf, and _that_ is a memory he would bury as deep as possible. “But why would they abandon ship while life support is still functioning?”

Sheppard shrugs. “We should check the previous entries. Perhaps the answer is hidden there somewhere.”

Ianto nods in agreement. “I’ll do it at once.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
But his attempts have no results at all. The pervious log entries have all been wiped – the database is completely empty. Purged.

“That must have happened when the mission, whatever it was, started,” Ianto says thoughtfully. “It had to be something very important, if they’ve gone such lengths to erase everything from the logs.”

“Can you restore the entries?” Sheppard asks.

“Not without help,” Ianto admits. “We’ll need Doctor Kusanagi up here; and special software. But yeah, unless the hard drive is physically damaged beyond repair, there is a chance to retrieve the entries.”

“Good,” Sheppard says. “As soon as McKay’s finished his analysis, we’ll call in reinforcements.”

As if on a clue, McKay’s agitated voice cuts in via headset. “Sheppard, come in.”

“Go ahead,” Sheppard replies, clearly not liking the panicked undertone of McKay’s voice – and if anyone, he ought to know what it means. He’s worked with the man closely for more than four years.

“Something’s happening,” McKay tells him, rather unhelpfully. “It’s the energy reading. It’s spiking – it’s going off the charts.”

“Well, _do_ something,” Sheppard replies with forced patience. “Turn it off.”

“I don’t know how!” McKay’s sounding positively hysterical now. “Look, it’s not coming from any of the main systems!”

Simultaneously, Major Lorne calls them from Atlantis’ Control room.

“Colonel Sheppard, this is Atlantis. We’re picking up some kind of power surge coming from the ship.”

“Yeah, we noticed it,” Sheppard replies. “We’re trying to check it out ourselves.”

“Should we send another jumper to assist?” Lorne asks. “Doctor Zelenka says your levels are still rising.”

“Not before we know what we’re dealing with,” Sheppard says. “Stand by.”

Just then, the _Daedalus_ starts to shake violently. It’s not unlike the effect of the Rift opening right under the Hub, Ianto finds, and it makes him even more nervous.

“Colonel,” he says quietly, “I think we should leave while we still can.”

“Good idea,” Sheppard touches his headset. “Team, this is Sheppard. Everyone back in the jumper – we’re leaving.”

Before they could leave the bridge, though, a bright white light envelops the entire room… so bright that they have to cover their eyes against the glare. It only lasts seconds, but they’re still seeing stars minutes later.

“Well, that was… unpleasant,” Ianto comments.

“Have people ever told you that you’re the master of understatement, Mr. Jones?” Sheppard asks with biting irony. Ianto just shrugs.

“Yes,” he replies matter-of-factly. “It’s proved very useful in the past. Especially around co-workers with a hang to overdone dramatics,” he adds, remembering Gwen’s reactions to anything unexpected.

“Yeah, I can imagine that,” Sheppard mutters, and given the fact that he’s been working with McKay for years, he probably can indeed. “Speaking of which,” he touches his headset, “McKay, what the hell was _that_?”

“I have no idea,” McKay answers, “but the energy reading’s gone back down the way it was.”

“Perhaps Atlantis has recorded something,” Ianto suggests.

“Let’s hope so,” Sheppard changes channels. “Atlantis, are you reading anything unusual?” There’s no reply, so he tries again. “Atlantis, come in.”

There’s still no response. Ianto tries it, too, but with the same results. “Perhaps a malfunction in our own comm net?” he theorizes. “Try the ship’s comm, Colonel, it has a longer reach.”

Sheppard looks at him in surprise. He apparently hasn’t expected someone from the administration to know so much about confidential tech – but again, he hasn’t met anyone from Torchwood before, either – then he pushes the button on the armrest of the command chair. “Atlantis, do you read?”

Still no answer. Sheppard frowns and switches back to his headset, calling McKay. “Rodney? I’m having problems with communications. I can’t reach Atlantis.”

“Let me scan the planet’s surface,” McKay answers. There’s a short pause, then he says, his voice revealing complete bafflement. “Wait a second. That can’t be right!”

“What?” they can hear Ronon’s gruff voice in the background.

“I’m not seeing the city on any of my screens!” McKay is all but screaming.

Sheppard shakes his head in surprise. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“I just did a sensor sweep, and there’s nothing down there but ocean!” McKay answers. He’s already caught himself and sounds almost calm… which is a worse sight than any hysterics. McKay only calms down so suddenly if things are just about to go terribly wrong.

“Well, maybe they cloaked,” Sheppard says. It’s a lame idea, and they all know it, but Ianto cannot resist the temptation to state the obvious.

“They wouldn’t have done that without telling us.”

“Well, _I don’t_ know,” Sheppard says, exasperated. "Maybe there’s a Wraith ship in the area.” “I’m not reading anything,” McKay replies tiredly. “Are we certain it’s the same planet?” Ianto asks. “Perhaps the energy burst shifted our position.” “No,” McKay says. “According to our instruments, we haven’t moved at all.” “What do you want me to believe, Rodney, that Atlantis just disappeared?” Sheppard demands. It’s McKay’s turn now to force himself to patience. “Look, I don’t know. Just give me a second and I’ll figure it out, all right? In the meantime I’ve managed to localise the source of the energy reading. It’s coming from a hold on Deck 9.” “All right, keep trying to reach Atlantis,” Sheppard says. “We’ll check it out. Send Ronon down to help us.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * They meet up with Ronon and cautiously make their way along Deck 9 when McKay radioes them again. “Sheppard, I think I’ve got something,” he says. It’s not very informative, and Sheppard rolls his eyes. “And that would be? Details, Rodney – preferably in monosyllables, so that I can understand.” He’s not _that_ stupid, actually he understands quite a bit about the Ancient tech they’re working with, but McKay tends to launch into scientific theorems only Zelenka could hope to follow. Like, right now.

“It’s the residual radiation from the flash,” McKay explains. “It’s similar to what happens when you open a hyperspace window, but different enough that the sensors wouldn’t have picked it up automatically.”

“Ummm,” Sheppard says intelligently, because the only result of the explanation is that now he’s even more confused than before. “What the hell does that mean?”

Surprisingly enough, McKay is capable of giving a straight answer. “I think we’re looking at a new kind of drive.”

“I thought you said we didn’t go anywhere,” Ianto comments with mild sarcasm.

“We didn’t,” McKay says agreeably, “at least not according to the ship’s navigational systems.”

“So,” Sheppard tries to clarify, “a malfunctioning drive?”

“Maybe,” McKay replies distractedly. “Just hang on.”

As it’s obvious that they won’t get an answer any time soon, Sheppard, Ianto and Ronon go into the room McKay has identified as the source of the unusual energy readings and take a look around. They don’t find anything unusual at first sight, but before they can make a detailed search, McKay shouts into his headset again, making them jump.

“Oh my God. Sheppard!”

Sheppard rubs his ear with a grimace; McKay’s shout nearly deafened him. “Stand by, Rodney. We haven’t had the time to take a closer look yet.”

“No, you don’t understand,” McKay says in excitement. “I know what it is! Look, the residual radiation – it’s exactly what we recorded when my double arrived on Atlantis from an alternate reality. I can’t believe I didn’t see this before!”

When he hears the words _alternate reality_ , Ianto feels his stomach turn upside down again. He knows the Stargate and Atlantis people have dealt with different alternate realities before and lived to tell the tale – he’s read the reports – but that doesn’t make him any more comfortable. He knows he ought to be more useful, he should help Ronon and Sheppard search the room, but he needs a moment to gather his wits around him again.

In the meantime, Ronon seems to have found something – and considering his grim expression, it ain't any good.

“Sheppard!” he calls over to them, “Over here!”

“It’s a drive, all right, but it didn’t move us through space. I think it’s moved us to a parallel universe!” McKay is still talking to them via headset.

That particular piece of information makes Ianto freeze again, but Sheppard gives him a little push. “C’mon, let’s see what Cheewie’s found.”

Ianto can’t help but smile at the Wookie remark – it’s quite matching, after all – then he walks over to Ronon’s position with the colonel. The sight awaiting them is… unexpected, to put it mildly.

“Well,” Sheppard says after a lengthy pause, “ _this_ could certainly verify McKay’s theory about alternate realities.”

The three of them stare at the sight of four dead people lying on the floor. The four people are Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla… and a Japanese woman neither of the Atlantis crew has ever seen before. For Ianto, however, she is painfully familiar. She is – or rather _was_ – Toshiko Sato. Or rather a different Toshiko Sato. One who’s wearing the Atlantis science uniform, with a Japanese flag patch on her arm and holds an Atlantis issue computer tablet in her lifeless hand.

 _Shock_ doesn’t even begin to describe Ianto’s feelings. The other two are shocked, too, although for different reasons.

Sheppard is the first to pull himself together again. It’s his command, his mission… and he can be very practical-minded if he chooses to.

“We need to move the bodies into a side room if we want to search _this_ one for McKay’s mysterious energy readings,” he says.

Ianto nods in agreement. Dealing with dead colleagues is something he’s depressingly familiar with, although seeing Tosh dead again isn’t something he’d ever have expected to do. At least none of the corpses is _his_ dead counterpart, which makes it a little easier for him than for the others.

“How long have they been dead for?” Ronon muses, covering the bodies. Sheppard shrugs.

“This place was like a meat locker. They could’ve been preserved like this for months.”

The casual remark has an unfortunate effect on Ianto. It brings up reminiscences of the Brecon Beacons, the fridge full of human body parts, of himself being forced onto the butcher’s table, the razor sharp meat cleaver nicking his throat to bleed him out… The bruised yet determined face of Tosh, whom he tried to save till the last possible moment… and failed. Or _would_ have failed, had Jack not ridden in on that tractor in the very last moment.

He runs out onto the nearest corridor and throws up. Sheppard and Ronon stare after him in bewilderment.

“What’s up with him?” the big Satedan asks, honestly baffled – which is justified, as never in the months spent on Atlantis has _anyone_ seen the unflappable Ianto Jones lose his calm… and in such a spectacular manner at that.

Sheppard, no stranger to traumatic memories himself, shrugs. “Dunno. Something I said must have triggered an old memory.”

“Makes one wonder what he might have done in his previous job,” Ronon comments.

“No idea,” Sheppard admits. “All I know is that he used to work for some shadowy organization everyone seems to have heard of among the British people but nobody seems to have the faintest _what_ our jobs here.”

Ianto’s not only recovered, he’s already cleaned up after himself – although _how_ he’s done it is beyond Sheppard – and is now looking at them apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Remembering how I’ve been nearly slaughtered and eaten by a bunch of in-bred cannibals often has this effect on me. So is dealing with dead colleagues all over again.”

Sheppard and Ronon are understandably baffled by that remark but know better not to ask for details. Not now anyway. Besides, McKay is arriving at that very moment, picks up the computer tablet of the dead lady scientist that has been forgotten on the floor – and becomes highly agitated again.

“Oh, no-no-no-no-no-no-no. This is very bad.”

Sheppard rolls his eyes; a fairly common reaction when he’s around McKay. “ _What_ is very bad, Rodney?

“This tablet belonged to the head scientist of and alternate Atlantis,” McKay explains. “However, the dead people you’ve found weren’t part of the original crew. They came here just like us. Look, a ship appeared in orbit over _their_ Atlantis. They came to check it out… the same way we did.”

“That would explain the other jumper in the bay,” Sheppard comments. “So, what happened to them?”

“The ship jumped to another reality and they were stuck,” McKay replies. “They couldn’t get back. Look, eventually their supplies ran out and – and they ... they ...”

“All right, all right,” Sheppard interrupts, when McKay’s voice starts to rise. “Mystery solved. Let’s move on.”

McKay shoot him a slightly panicked look. “But don’t you realise what this means? They were _us_ and they failed.”

“Well, they’re _not_ us,” Sheppard says firmly. “ _We’re_ still alive… and besides, half the team is different from ours.”

“Exactly!” McKay prompts, clearly insulted. “What were they _thinking_ , replacing _me_ with some… some _girl_? Who the hell is she anyway?”

Sheppard and Ronon exchange identical blank looks and shrug in unison.

“Never seen her before,” Sheppard says.

“Her name is – _was_ – Toshiko Sato,” Ianto supplies quietly. “ _Doctor_ Toshiko Sato; and she was a genius when it came to computers and other electronic equipment. She was snatched up to work for a governmental think tank when she was twenty and worked for them for ten years.”

“You speak of her in past tense,” Ronon says.

“She’s dead in our reality, too,” Ianto replies sadly.

“Did you know her well?” the Satedan asks.

Ianto nods. “We used to work together for a few years. We were friends, despite the fact that she was quite a few years older than I.”

“If she was such a big name, how comes that she’d work for such a shadowy organization as yours?” Sheppard asks. Ianto shrugs, apparently taking no offence about his former job being given such a derogatory description.

“Personal tragedies, “ he explains vaguely. “We of Torchwood are – _were_ – all broken people, one way or another. Only those who had nothing to lose could truly shoulder the job.”

Which was the very reason why Gwen, coming from her mundane little world, could never understand the others.

“Well,” Sheppard says, “as interesting as this is, it doesn’t bring us any further. Let’s go back to the room where we found the bodies. The answer _is_ in here somewhere. Let’s find it.”

“Good idea,” McKay is already on his way. “We need to find a way out of here.” The others follow him back in.

“Can you power up the systems?” Sheppard asks him.

“Uh, yeah,” McKay looks around, seeking for something to work with.

“What about this here?” Ianto points at an electrics box on the wall. “Shall I open the cover?”

“Just hold on,” McKay hurries over to him and shoulders his way to the box to open the cover himself. He starts to tinker around with the controls, and a moment later the room lights up and all the control consoles switch on.

“All right,” Sheppard says contentedly, “that’s a start.”

Ianto looks around in the now well-lit room, comparing it with he rooms of the _Daedalus_ of their reality, the layout of which he’s stored in his eidetic memory. After a few moments, he discovers and unusual looking doorway at the other end of the room.

“What could be behind here?” he asks.

McKay follows his glance and frowns. “Huh. That’s a good question.”

He walks over to the console in front of the doorway and types. There’s no reaction.

“I don’t understand it,” he complains. “It won’t accept my access code.”

“Perhaps because you aren’t the head scientist of Atlantis in _their_ reality,” Ianto suggests. “It was obviously Toshiko, or she wouldn’t have been on the colonel’s team.”

“Yes, yes, thank you for stating the glaringly obvious!” McKay snaps. “Would you have any more ideas – perhaps some that would, you know, actually _work_?”

“Well,” Ianto replies thoughtfully,” I can try _our_ Toshiko’s access code. She used to have the highest security clearance, right after our team leader.”

“And you just happen to know her top secret security code?” McKay asks suspiciously.

Ianto shrug. “I knew _everything_ what was going on in our base. Including _everyone_ ’s secret codes. But since there were only the five of us, that wasn’t such a big deal.”

“So, does it mean you know all _our_ security codes, too?” McKay asks with a frown.

“Yes,” Ianto replies simply. “That’s part of my job. No need to get all paranoid about it, though. I cannot fake your fingerprints or retina scans… not without a great deal of effort anyway.”

The others look at him in mild shock and with a great deal of suspicion – except Ronon who doesn’t seem to care. Of course, he isn’t privy to sensitive information anyway. Finally, Sheppard shakes himself.

“All right, give it a try,” he says. “Perhaps we get lucky.”

His voice reveals that the topic isn’t dealt with just yet, but they don’t have time for such things right now. Ianto nods and types Tosh’s access code in the computer tablet of the alternate Tosh. At first, nothing happens, for three or four seconds. Then a five-sided device in the centre of the door pops out a little and, as a small wheel in the centre of the device spins around like the dial on a safe, three red lights come on. The lights then turn green and the door opens, revealing a large turbine behind it.

“Wow!” Sheppard says, impressed.

“Yeah,” Ronon agrees. “Quite the monster, that one. But what _is_ it?”

“I’m guessing that’s our alternate reality drive,” McKay says.

“Can you figure out how to control it?” Sheppard asks.

McKay gives him an irritated look. “Off-hand, I’d say no. That’s what the little lady of the other Atlantis was trying to do, and she had _weeks_. 

Sheppard looks back at him sternly. “Rodney, are you telling me that you can’t do better than some _girl_ from an alternate reality?”

“Fine,” McKay replies petulantly. “I’ll start with her research. It’ll at least give us a head start.”

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Ianto offers. “I’m familiar with Tosh’s way of thinking, and I know most of the codes and passwords she uses… well, _used_ to protect her work with. It seems her alternate self wasn’t all that different.”

“Yeah, that’s better,” Sheppard says before McKay could protest. “We’re gonna go and look for supplies.”

“What, you don’t think the other us wouldn’t have already tried that?” McKay grumbles.

“Get to work!” Sheppard replies. And then he leaves, taking Ronon with him.


	2. The Return of the Cybermen

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**PART 2 – THE RETURN OF THE CYBERMEN**

“All right,” McKay says when the other two are gone. “Let’s close the blast door and see if this Miss Sato of yours was really such a genius as you seem to think.”

“ _Doctor_ Sato,” Ianto corrects, indignant on Tosh’s behalf, whatever reality she might have belonged. “Trust me, she _was_ a genius – and unlike some people, she didn’t feel the constant need to boast about it.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” McKay waves impatiently. “Close the damn doors, will you?”

“Why would we…” Ianto stops mid-question when realization hits. “Oh. Of course. Residual radiation,” and off he is to do as he was told.p> “Congratulations,” McKay says bitingly. “Apparently, the Welsh aren’t all in-bred morons, after all. Now, if that _that_ isn’t a surprise…”

“We’re also sneaky, vengeful and good at holding grudges,” Ianto replies mildly and reaches out for alternate Tosh’s computer tablet. “Let’s see if I can get in.”

It takes him about ten minutes to find the correct password – he’s somewhat surprised that if would be the maiden name of Owen’s dead fiancée, but again, Tosh’s never gone for the obvious. He also recognizes one of her highly efficient data compression systems, and as he knows how to unpack the compressed data blocks, McKay can soon dive headfirst into the depths of alternate Tosh’s research.

“Hmmm…” Atlantis’ head geek says, clearly impressed. ”She was good, very good. Perhaps not directly a genius, I wouldn’t go so far, but…”

“You’re just jealous cos in the alternate reality she has gotten _your_ job,” Ianto says with a bland face.

“And not just in _this_ alternate reality, apparently,” McKay replies, obviously baffled.

Ianto raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Look at this,” McKay shows him one of the particularly cramped data packs. “It looks like the drive itself was created by yet _another_ Toshiko Sato, from the original reality.”

“Well,” Ianto decided, having studied the data for a while, “there _is_ a certain elegance to the design that I recognise.”

“I’m sure that’s what the crew were saying when they abandoned ship,” Sheppard comments cynically.

McKay shrugs. “Well admittedly there are problems, but it is still a monumental achievement.”

“So you admit that she _was_ a genius?” Ianto comments _sotto voice_. McKay turns and glares daggers at him.

“I didn’t say _that_ ,” he protests.

Ianto gives him The Eyebrow™. “Like I said – simply jealous,” he sates.

“Okay, okay, stop this now!” Sheppard interrupts their banter. “Rodney, what do we do? Can we just throw this thing in reverse?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s a little more complicated than that,” McKay replies. “The first problem is navigation. They’ve developed a co-ordinate system to identify the various realities and allow them to get back, but, uh, obviously that didn’t work.”

“No shit!” Sheppard raises the fake surprise routine to new heights, but McKay pays him little to no attention, his overactive brain already ten steps ahead.

“But that’s not what really bothers me,” he says, more to himself than to the others.

“Well, good for _you_ ,” Sheppard comments sarcastically. “It kind of bothers _me_ , you know.”

McKay doesn’t listen to him; he probably doesn’t even hear the comment amidst of his monologue. “It’s power generation. I mean, jumping from one reality to another requires massive amounts of power. We’re talking ZedPM levels here. Obviously they didn’t have one of those rattling around, so they created a capacitor that’s constantly drawing power from sub-space.”

An alarm beeps on one of the consoles, interrupting his rather vocal thinking process.

“And it looks like it’s almost charged," Ianto adds calmly. “I wonder if we’re going to find coffee in the next reality. I’m kinda feeling useless without operating a coffee machine.”

Sheppard ignores him. He’s too busy glaring daggers at McKay.

“Is this your long-winded way of telling me you just can’t turn it off?” he asks.

McKay shrugs. “Think of it like a tap pouring water into a bucket,” he explains. “When the bucket is full, the drive engages – except this particular tap has no valve.”

“It seems like a pretty serious design flaw, don’t you think?” Sheppard asks.

“Exactly,” McKay agrees, and it’s now Ianto’s turn to glare daggers at him, because it’s Tosh’s design, and he won’t take kindly _anybody_ speaking ill of Tosh or her work, even if it is, technically, not about _his_ Tosh. 

“Which leads me to believe they were tampering with it in a vain attempt to generate more power,” McKay continues.

“You mean the team we found here dead?” Sheppard clarifies-

McKay nods, while the ship begins to shake. “As they got further and further from their own reality, I guess they figured they needed to get back.”

The shaking becomes more violent as Ianto watches the control screen of the generator reach 99 percent, and then go to 100 percent.

“And here we go,” he announces.

The already familiar white flash briefly envelops the entire room. Ianto sees McKay grimace and blink as the glare fades.

“Okay,” Sheppard says. “Where are we?”

“Don’t look at me,” McKay snaps, irritated. “I haven’t had time to route the main systems to these control panels. I’m flyin’ blind down here.”

“You’re _not_ flying the ship, McKay,” Sheppard points out unhelpfully. “She’s doing all the work on her own.”

“Colonel,” Ianto intervenes smoothly before they could get into a really ugly fight, “perhaps we ought to go up to the bridge and make a sensor sweep.”

Sheppard gives him a doubtful look. “Are you familiar with the bridge systems?”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly _fly_ the ship,” Ianto admits, “but I can use the communication system and the scanners well enough.”

“Works for me,” Sheppard picks up his rifle and activates his headset. “Ronon, meet me and Ianto at the bridge.”

“Okay,” Ronon grunts over radio.

“Keep it up, Rodney,” Sheppard tells McKay’s back and leaves the room, Ianto in trail.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When they reach the bridge, Ianto goes directly to the sensor controls and makes a thorough sweep of their surroundings – including the planet which they are still orbiting.

“Colonel, Atlantis is back,” he reports in surprise. “I’m picking them up on the sensors.”

He types on the console to put the image on the wall screen. Sheppard looks at him with newborn respect.

“You’re really good at working this stuff,” he says. “When did you learn it?”

“When I came to Atlantis on board the _Daedalus_ , “Ianto explains. “Doctor Novak and Hermiod were generous enough to explain me a great deal about how the board systems work.”

“Yeah, Major Marks wanted to give _me_ some preliminary training, too,” Ronon comments, “but I was too busy.”

Ianto shrugs. “Your loss. Colonel, shall I call Atlantis?”

“If it’s not too much to ask,” Sheppard replies with an eyeroll. Ianto activates the comm system. “Atlantis, this is Sheppard, come in.” Like before, there’s no reply. “Atlantis, do you read?”

“Maybe they already _have_ a Sheppard,” Ronon suggests with a smirk.

Sheppard gives him a baleful look and activates his headset. “Rodney, what are the odds of us randomly jumping back into our own reality?”

“I’d say slim to none,” McKay’s voice replies via radio.

Ianto, in the meantime, is distracted by some unexpected readings on the sensor control screen.

“Colonel, I’m detecting another ship in orbit,” he reports. Sheppard whirls around to face him.

“What kind of ship?” he demands.

“I’ll see if I can pull it up on screen,” Ianto is already typing away on the console. A moment later the external cameras show the other ship.

It’s a design neither of them has seen before: vaguely triangular in shape, silver-grey, and with one mean-looking gun on each side, each almost as big as the ship itself. Which, according to the scale on the bottom of the control screen, is about the _Daedalus_ ’s own size.

Ronon looks at Sheppard questioningly, but the colonel shakes his head.

“I don’t recognise it,” he admits, then he points to a particular section of the hull. “Can you magnify _that_ section?”

Ianto nods and types, and the cameras zoom in on the area and show a symbol painted on the side of the ship. It’s more or less X-shaped, although the lines are broken at unusual angles.

“What’s that?” Ronon asks.

“Presumably either something giving the ship’s or the race’s designation,” Sheppard replies with a shrug.

Ronon raises an eyebrow. “You know it?”

Sheppard shakes his head. “No.”

“But _I do_ ,” Ianto says quietly. “Granted, it’s been years since I saw something like this, and even then only for a moment – junior researchers were _not_ supposed to view confidential material at Torchwood London – but I’m fairly certain that it’s the symbol of the planet Telos… or rather the alternate equivalent of it.”

“Which means… what exactly?” Sheppard asks, the name not ringing any bells with him.

“If I’m right, and I don’t see how I could be wrong about this, we ought to destroy this ship before its crew has the chance to destroy _us_ , “Ianto replies grimly.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down for a moment!” Sheppard protests. “We can’t just start shooting at an unknown ship, only because you _think_ they might fire at us.”

“No?” Ianto glances down at his console, which begins to beep. “What about this, then: the ship is powering up its weapons. Do you still believe I’m exaggerating?”

Sheppard jogs over to him, checks the readings and frowns. “What’s our shield status?”

“Minimal,” Ianto replies curtly. “Certainly not sufficient to withstand the laser cannons of that ship. They’re bloody large, in case you haven’t realized.”

“What does tell you those are laser cannons?” Ronon asks. “By the sight of them, they could be anything.”

“Cybermen of our own reality used laser cannons when attempted to destroy an entire base… _or_ a spaceship,” Ianto answers matter-of-factly. “ _And_ cobalt bombs, if they were trying to destroy whole planets. According to the records of Torchwood London, a Cyber-megatron bomb could have destroyed all life on Earth.”

“ _Cybermen_?” Sheppard replies, clearly unfamiliar with the term. “You mean human-form Replicators?”

“No," Ianto says,” these are a different race. Listen, Colonel, I’ll gladly update your knowledge in this particular area once we’re back in our reality, but I really think we ought to take counter-measures _now_ , as long as we still can.”

As if on clue, the alien ship begins to fire multiple energy bursts – but not at the _Daedalus_. It fires them down towards the planet.

“It’s firing on Atlantis!” Ronon realizes with a shock.

“Then the city is doomed,” Ianto says grimly. “Her shields are failing already.”

“We’ll see _that_!” Sheppard hurries over to the weapons console and sits down. “Rodney, do we have enough juice to power up the Asgard beam?”

“Maybe,” McKay replies distractedly. “I mean, you _might_ be able to get a couple of shots off. Why?”

“There’s some alien ship attacking Atlantis,” Sheppard explains.

“So?” McKay doesn’t see the problem. Or he’s too busy down there to care.

“What do you mean, _so_?” Sheppard demands. “It’s _Atlantis_!”

“Yeah, well, it’s not _our_ Atlantis,” McKay points out. “We have no idea who’s down there. Look, we should just stay out of it.”

“Colonel,” Ianto warns. “If we do not intervene, the city will be destroyed. _Then_ the ship will turn around and finish _us_ off. One way or another, we won’t get around fighting it.”

“And you’re absolutely sure about _that_?” Sheppard asks.

Ianto nods. “I’ve fought them before… well, sort of. Mostly, I was hiding and hoping they won’t find me and turn me into one of them. I’m one of the twenty-seven people out of more than eight hundred who survived when they last paid Earth a visit.”

“They were on Earth already?” Sheppard is baffled.

“Several times,” Ianto says. “Of course, it was covered up by UNIT and has been considered top secret, ever since. I doubt that anyone in the States aside from your President knows about it… perhaps not even he does.”

“Okay,” Sheppard forces himself to focus on the problem at hand. “That’s another story you ought to tell when we’re back home. Rodney, we need all available power for the Asgard beam. Ianto says we ought to blow that ship of the sky, and my gut tells me we should listen.”

“I hope you’re right!” McKay answers; then the weapons console suddenly comes alive.

“Yeah, well, me too,” Sheppard hits the fire button. The control screen shows the _Daedalus_ turn and fire a single Asgard beam which strikes the alien ship. Then a second beam is fired, and the bombardment of the planet ceases.

“Direct hits on both laser cannons,” Ianto reports. “The ship’s been damaged. It’s stopped firing.”

“That’s good,” Sheppard says. “Hopefully we took out its main weapons.”

Ianto re-checks the sensor control screen. “We have. But it isn’t over yet. They’re launching fighters.”

“Great!” Sheppard comments sarcastically, as Ianto calls up on the wall screen the image of a whole lot of small craft deploying from the ship and heading towards the _Daedalus_. The heck view of the fighters is amazingly similar to the symbol on the ship’s side. “I think I’ll have to do some piloting here, assuming the sub-light engines are still working. Ronon!”

As the Satedan walks towards him, Sheppard vacates the chair. “You should’ve taken Marks’ offer up when you had the chance. Now you’re gonna have to learn fast.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Ianto says. “I can do this.”

Sheppard glances at him in disbelief. “You can handle the weapons controls?”

Ianto walks over to them and sits down in the chair without being invited to do so.

“Rail gun targeting systems,” he points to the console. “The buttons on the right control radar, tracking and target acquisition. And I’ll use the red button to fire. Anything else?”

For a moment, both Sheppard and Ronon stare at him in open-mouthed awe; then the colonel runs over to the pilot’s seat. Ianto concentrates with narrowing eyes, hands hovering over the console, as if he’d be playing some highly advanced video game. Soon, the rail guns begin to fire towards the approaching fleet. He manages to score a few hits, but the fighters continue to soar towards the _Daedalus_ , firing at her.

 _One has to give the Cybermen that: they’re nothing if not thorough_, Ianto thinks grimly. A quick glance at his control screen alarms him to another problem, though.

“Colonel, the weakened shields can’t keep everything from getting through,” he reports, without turning his eyes from Tactical. “We’ve got multiple hits all over the ship.”

“Great!” that single word seems to be Sheppard’s preferred expression of sarcasm. Just in that moment, multiple explosions go off on the bridge. 

“There’s too many of them, and the systems react sluggishly,” Ianto adds. “I can’t cover them all.”

“Keep trying!” Sheppard orders.

Ianto keeps doing his best and manages to hit the rear of another one of the fighters, which rolls, trailing smoke behind it. Suddenly, it turns and plunges towards the _Daedalus_ , breaking through the shields and smashing into the top of the ship. Everyone reels as the ship shakes violently and more explosions go off on the bridge. It has an eerie similarity with space battles in Star Trek – only that it’s frighteningly real.

Sheppard tries to complete the evasive maneuvers he’s started before the collision, but the pilot’s console doesn’t react.

“Have we just lost sub-light?” he asks unhappily.

Ianto gets up and hurries over to the life support console that’s beeping frantically.

“More than that, I’m afraid,” he replies grimly. “We’ve got a hull breach and are venting atmosphere.”

“Try to seal off the damaged areas,” Sheppard orders.

“I’m already at it,” Ianto’s working on the console furiously, then leans back and sighs in relief. “Done. We ought to be okay for the moment.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ronon mutters.

McKay’s voice interrupts them, high pitched in indignation and terror. “What the hell was that? Consoles are exploding all around me down here!”

“We’re under attack,” Sheppard tells him. “We’ve lost sub-light and have a hull breach. Any change of getting that hyperdrive back online?”

“No!” McKay replies, way louder than it would be necessary. “It’s completely shot! I already told you that. But…” he trails off, and the others can almost hear the wheels in his head whirring. “But I might have an idea.”

“It’s about time,” Sheppard mutters. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’ve set up a few protocols that should increase the efficiency of the alternate reality drive,” McKay explains. “If I enable them, we might be able to jump sooner.”

“To the next universe?” Ianto asks.

“Exactly,” McKay replies. “But if I do this, I can’t _undo_ it. I mean, we’ll just start jumping faster and faster.”

Sheppard looks at Ronon in askance, and the big Satedan shrugs. “Well, we can’t stay where we are,” he says, tilting his head in the direction of the wall screen that’s still showing the alien ship.

“No,” Ianto agrees. “If the Cybermen of this reality are anything like the ones that have visited ours, they won’t stop until we’re all dead.”

“All right,” Sheppard sighs. “Do it, Rodney. We’ll keep an eye on the enemy in the meantime. Ianto, take weapons controls again. You seem awfully good at this kind of thing. Ever been in any space battles before?”

“Do video games count?” Ianto asks, while taking the seat again.

“In the matter of hand-eye-coordination… yeah, they do,” Sheppard replies. “When we get back to _our_ Atlantis, I’m challenging you to a battle simulation.”

“ _If_ ,” Ianto says quietly, switching on the targeting systems.

Sheppard looks at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“ _If_ we get back to our Atlantis,” Ianto repeats. “Cos unless Doctor McKay works his miracles very soon, we might not get that chance.”

Sheppard follows his glance at the control screen, which shows three fighters drawing into tight formation and heading towards the _Daedalus_ on a kamikaze run. Ianto opens fire at them, but to little effect. They’re simply too fast for the sluggish targeting system, and he’s not familiar enough with the ship to even try a manual override. Miraculously, though, shortly before impact, the now-familiar bright light envelops the bridge again, and the attackers disappear.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Moments later, the white light fades, and instead the room is bathed in an ominous red glow, coming from the outside.

“Huh!” Sheppard says in pleasant surprise. “It worked!”

Ronon frowns at the sight out of the front windshield… if one can speak about a _windshield_ in context with a _spaceship_ , that is. “Where are we?”

Sheppard rises from the pilot’s seat and walks with him towards the front of the bridge. Ianto, however, goes back to life support. Something – he isn’t sure what – doesn’t feel right. When he gives the control screen a cursory look, he also realizes _what_ that is.

“Colonel, we’ve got a problem,” he reports. “Hull temperature is rising rapidly. By this rate, we’ll be toast within minutes.”

Sheppard doesn’t react. He’s still staring ahead through the windshield, stunned. “What the hell is _this_?”

Ianto walks up to him and takes the look. “I’d say, the surface of a star,” he judges. “And an uncomfortably close one, by the sight of it. According to sensor readings, we’re less than two million kilometres from the outer corona.”

“I thought we always jumped to the same place in every reality?” Sheppard says with a frown. Ianto shrugs.

“Theoretically, we do. But who says all alternate realities ought to be the same? They’re called _alternate_ for a reason, ain’t they?”

“Good point,” Sheppard admits. “When I was thrown into the future last year, I saw the Lantean sun expanding into a red giant. Perhaps in this reality, it happened sooner. Much sooner.”

“Perhaps,” Ianto agrees. “In any case, we need to find a way out of this without getting fried. I hope Doctor McKay does have an idea, as I’m fresh out of them, myself.”

Sheppard contacts McKay, who tells them he has no idea how long it would take him to repair the sub-light engines and suggest rerouting all available power to the shields and riding out the whole situation ‘til the next jump. It’s not a solution either of them would be really happy wit, but all things considered, it seems to be the most promising one. So they all relocate to Engineering, and Ianto sits down to one of the consoles to help McKay, who’s still in the drive room, giving him instructions via headset.

“All right,” he says, “tell me what I’m supposed to do here.”

“I need you to kill all power to non-essential decks,” McKay replies, “which means you’re gonna have to access the main administrative interface. That should bring up a list of all available override commands. Do you think you can find them?”

“Just give me a minute,” Ianto calls up the interface, as Hermiod has shown him on his first trip to the Pegasus galaxy, and after a moment, he manages to find the appropriate programme. A long list starts scrolling down the screen, and he transfers the list down to McKay, to the drive room. “I think that’s all of them.”

“Dammit!” McKay doesn’t sound happy with the results. “That didn’t buy us nearly as much power as I would have thought.”

“There’s gotta be something else,” Sheppard, who’s looking over Ianto’s shoulder, says in frustration.

“Right, um, all right,” McKay trails off as he’s thinking furiously. “Look, the ship has auxiliary power modules for most of the main systems. Most likely they’re depleted but, if not, well, they might buy us a little more juice.”

Ianto calls up a different interface, and soon he finds access to the modules McKay is speaking about. He sends McKay the information. “Did that help?”

Before McKay could answer, however, they hear repeated gunfire from the corridor. By the sound of it, it’s Ronon’s blaster – they realize neither of them has noticed the big Satedan leaving the room. Ianto rises automatically; his hand on his gun already, but Sheppard holds him back with a gesture. They both turn to the doorway and listen as the fire continues in the distance.

“Colonel,” Ianto says in a low voice, not wanting to alarm McKay any more, “if the Cybermen have managed to board this ship, we’ll need a great deal of firepower to kill them – preferably energy weapons. There are various kinds of them; the ones from a parallel dimension _I’ve_ met were bullet-proof metal exoskeletons with a human brain inside. They were equipped with retractable energy weapons housed within their forearms and could electrocute their victims by mere touch.”

“Charming,” Sheppard comments, raising a sarcastic eyebrow. “Are you trying to scare me, Mr. Jones?”

“No,” Ianto replies seriously. “I’m trying to forewarn you.”

“Warning duly noted,” Sheppard says. “We still need to deal with them, whatever brand they are, though. And since you’re needed here to help Rodney, I’ll go to see how Ronon’s doing. Follow me when you’re done.” And with that, he chases off.

Ianto sits down again. “Doctor McKay? Tell me what to do next.”

McKay whimpers plaintively – he must have heard more of their conversation that Ianto meant him to hear. After a moment, however, he manages to get his nerves under control and starts giving instructions. Ianto tries to stay focussed, which isn’t easy with the continuing gunfire outside the room and the steadily rising panic inside him, but he can’t afford any mistakes right now. 

After a few minutes, he’s done everything McKay’s told him to do and is ready to go help Sheppard and Ronon. “That’s it,” he reports to McKay. “That’s all of them. I must go help Colonel Sheppard and Mr Dex. Good luck, Doctor – to all of us.”

Picking up the rifle Ronon’s left behind, he stands up to leave, but McKay’s voice stops him in mid-movement. “No-no-no-no-no-no-n’-no! It’s not enough!”

“What do you mean _not enough_?” Ianto asks, trying very hard _not_ to panic.

“Without sub-light engines to keep us in standard distance, our orbit is decaying which means more radiation slamming into the shields,” McKay explains, his voice steadily rising in pitch. “The alternate reality drive is only charged to seventy per cent, which means it’ll never make a hundred before the shields fail.”

Ianto sinks back into his chair and tries to stay calm. If McKay loses it _now_ , they won’t stand a chance to get out of here alive. “All right, Doctor McKay. Is there anything I can do from here? Are they any other sources of power that we could use?”

His calm, even voice – that mirrors nothing from the chaos inside him – seems to have a soothing effect on McKay’s nerves.

“Look, ju-just give me a second,” the head scientist replies… and then there’s nothing more coming from him for a while.

Ianto’s anxiety is growing with every passing second. From the corridor, he can still hear the rattling of Sheppard’s P-90 and the blasts of Ronon’s gun. But there’s another sound, one he is vaguely familiar with: a high-pitched whining that ends in a loud blast. An energy weapon of some sort, sounding eerily like the ones the Cybermen used at Canary Wharf. Not quite the same, but frighteningly similar. He feels a near uncontrollable urge to run out and see with his own eyes what’s happening out there.

“Doctor McKay, Colonel Sheppard and Ronon are under attack!” he says urgently.

“All right, I got it,” the nervous voice of McKay answers. “I got it. Drop the shields.”

“ _What_?” Ianto believes he hasn’t heard it right.

“ _Drop_ the shields,” McKay repeats. “I will transfer all available power to the drive. Hopefully it’ll be enough to induce a jump.”

“ _Hopefully_?” Ianto doesn’t like the sound of _that_.

“It is our only option, and every second we argue about it is less of a chance it’s gonna work!” McKay snaps.

“Very well,” Ianto sighs in defeat. “Dropping shields. I really hope, Doctor, that you know what you’re doing – or else we’ll burn extra crispy within moments.”

He types the appropriate commands into the console. Immediately an alarm starts to sound. Ianto checks it and isn’t the least surprised by the results.

“Hull temperature is passing critical,” he tells McKay.

“OK, transferring power to the drive now,” McKay replies.

From the corner of his eye, Ianto watches the counter of the alternate reality drive on the control screen. It races up from seventy per cent into the nineties, but when it reaches ninety-seven it hesitates, then clicks up to ninety-eight and stops there.

“Oh, no-no-no-no-no-no-no!” McKay wails.

“What is it?” Ianto asks tersely, stomping down the urge to be really rude to the man.

“It’s not enough!” McKay says. “It’s only ninety-eight per cent!”

“I can see _that_ ,” Ianto comments dryly, as the alarm continues on his console. “For your information, the hull is beginning to deteriorate.”

He stares at the control screen in barely controlled panic. They’re truly between a rock and a hard place there – being cooked alive by the red giant _and_ attacked by alternate reality Cybermen at the same time. This was definitely _not_ what he expected when he left Torchwood for the Atlantis expedition: to have to face his arch enemies again and die a fiery death, together with them. Life can be really unfair sometimes.

After a moment, the counter clicks up to ninety-nine per cent.

“Come on! Come on!” McKay chants desperately, as if trying to bend the belligerent machine to his will. At long last, the counter clicks up to one hundred per cent.

“That’s it!” McKay cries in triumph. “Sheppard, we’re jumping!”

The _Daedalus_ begins to shake. Before the white flash can hit Engineering, Ianto’s out of his chair and running towards the corridor. He barely reaches the doorway when the ship jumps into a different universe – together with an unknown number of hostile Cybermen fighting their team in the corridors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Details considering the Cybermen are all results of Wikipedia research. I hope I get them right – the descriptions are a little confusing at times.


	3. Stowaways & Other Inconveniences - Part 1

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **PART 3/1 – STOWAWAYS AND OTHER INCONVENIENCES**

When the white light fades around him, Ianto finds himself in the middle of a nightmarish scenario. Sheppard and Ronon are fighting numerous creatures that look like some weird combination of Frankenstein’s monster and the Borg: bald, grey-skinned, presumably male humanoids, wearing a semi-organic, dark grey suit. They have red glowing implants in their left temple, like a row of small, blinking lights.

Actually, they’ve got very little in common with the Cybermen Ianto knows from their own reality, save for the Telos symbol on the chest of their uniform – _and_ for the fact that they seem to possess superhuman strength.

There are at least six of them, two more lying on the floor, unmoving, presumably – _hopefully_! – dead. Ronon is trying to finish off another one, but as he starts to raise his blaster, the Cyberman seizes his arm and slams him against the next best doorframe – then swings him across and slams him against the other door frame. Ronon struggles with it but it pushes him out into the corridor and smashes him viciously back against the bulkhead several times before throwing him across the floor.

Ianto winces in sympathy; that must have hurt. Well, at least _these_ Cybermen apparently can’t electrocute anyone by touch. Also, their implants seem to be few and more part of their suits than their actual bodies. Perhaps in this reality, they’ve just begun replacing their body parts with cybernetics. If so, that would make them slightly more vulnerable to common weapons.

Seeing that the Frankenstein-wannabe is about to finish Ronon off, Ianto raises the borrowed rifle and aims carefully. Usually, he isn’t fond of shooting at any living thing, not even at Weevils, but with Cybermen, no matter from which reality they originate, he’s more than willing to make an exception. He empties the whole cartridge into the… the _thing_ before it can reach Ronon.

The Satedan looks up at him with new respect. “Thanks, man.”

Then he grabs his blaster and shoots the head of another approaching Cyberman to bloody pieces… only that it isn’t blood what comes from the body. At least it isn’t red. Ianto squats down and rubs the viscous, milky fluid between his fingertips.

“Feels like some sort of coolant,” he says.

A look at the head wound reveals an organic brain (or what’s left from it after that blast), grafted to some kind of artificial nervous system. The grey skin feels surprisingly organic, too, but the suit is made of an unknown metallic alloy, as smooth and elastic as latex and yet most likely bullet proof.

“What are you doing there?” Ronon asks impatiently. “Sheppard needs our help!”

And indeed, gunfire can still be heard further down, from a side corridor.

“I’m learning our enemy,” Ianto replies. “Projectile weapons will be useless against this suit – we’ll have to aim at their heads… or need a much bigger calibre.”

“What about their own weapons?” Ronon pulls a blaster from a holster on the Cyberman’s leg and shows it Ianto.

“Should work,” Ianto agrees. “Very few people create weapons that would be harmless to themselves. Let’s give it a try.”

Ronon aims the weapon at the ceiling further down the corridor and pulls the trigger. A blast similar to the one that comes from his own blaster blows a hole in the ceiling, but this beam is bright green instead of Ronon’s red. Ronon looks at the blaster.

“Cool,” he comments in satisfaction. “We should collect a few of these… just in case.”

Ianto agrees and takes the blaster of the other corpse, wiping his hands on his trouser leg. Just then a green blast heads towards them from down the corridor. 

“Take cover!” Ronon shouts, and they dive either side of the doorway as more green blasts head in their direction. Leaning out of hiding, the Satedan fires back at their attackers as they see two more Cybermen at the end of the corridor. At the same time, they hear a pain-filled shriek from the other corridor.

“That’s Sheppard!” Ronon throws the alien blaster to Ianto. “Let’s get him!”

They follow the sound and soon they find Sheppard, pinned to the floor by a snarling Cyberman that has a large, gloved hand around his throat and is trying to throttle him. Sheppard punches its face repeatedly, but without much effect. The Cyberman continues to snarl and roar, its hand tightening around Sheppard's throat. With its other hand it is has effectively immobilized Sheppard’s right arm so that he's been forced to drop his rifle.

Blue-faced, Sheppard is close to losing consciousness, when Ianto arrives and fires the Cyber-blaster right at the creature’s head. His aim is slightly off from the running; the green energy beam only grazes the Cyberman’s temple, making it even madder. Snarling, it releases Sheppard and turns towards Ianto. Without losing a moment, Sheppard rolls over, picks up his rifle and fires a hail of bullets into the thing’s back. Unfortunately, all the bullets can do is tipping the creature off-balance; they can't penetrate its semi-metallic suit.

Ianto continues firing his borrowed Cyber-blaster, without wasting time for adjusting his aim. Finally, a shot hits the unprotected head of the creature, and it falls to the floor. Sheppard approaches it cautiously as it lies twitching in its death throes, but Ianto isn't taking any risks. He walks up closer, aims carefully and shoots the thing's head to bloody pieces. It isn't a pleasant sight - yet it's strangely reassuring.

Sheppard looks at the bloody mess and all colour is drained from his face. "Was that really necessary?"

Ianto shrugs. "This is the only way to make sure they won't get up again," he gaves Sheppard a pointed look. "Do you _want_ them to get up again?"

Sheppard shakes his head mutely, still a little green around the gills. Even with his past, the gore is a bit too much for his stomach's comfort.

Meanwhile, Ronon and the other Cybermen are still firing at each other. Ianto realizes that the Satedan might need help and runs back to the other corridor. Bettering the odds a little, they soon have all the creatures down and return to a still fairly shaken Sheppard.

“You okay?” Ronon asks.

Sheppard nods, and the Satedan looks down at the lifeless bodies with disgust.

“Where the hell did it come from?” he muses.

Ianto kneels down, rolls one of the corpses onto its back and points to a marking on its uniform.

“See? It’s the Telos-symbol, the same that was on the alien ship. They’ve definitely come from that ship.”

“Perhaps,” Ronon allows. “But how’d they get on board?”

“They crashed into us, penetrated our hull, remember?” Sheppard reminds him. His voice is steady again; he’s already gotten back into command mode.

Ronon frowns. “You think they did it on purpose?” 

Sheppard shrugs. “It’s a good question.”

“Yes, they did,” Ianto says quietly. “They have little regard for their own lives… such as those are. They can always be replaced – their survival is secondary to the goal.”

“And you’ve fought such creatures on _Earth_?” Sheppard asks incredulously.

“Actually, the ones I… _met_ were a lot more mechanical-looking,” Ianto explains. “In fact, they looked like a cheap version of C3PO… you know, that annoying robot from, the original Star Wars film. It was only later, during the invasion that they started grafting cyber-components directly to human bodies.”

Sheppard is an intelligent man and finally puts together the sparse bits and pieces he’s been given about Ianto’s past during the recent months.

“Is _that_ what happened to your girlfriend?” he asks with compassion.

Ianto nods. “They didn’t have the time to finish the conversion, so, fool of love as I was, I thought I could still help her. But even the partial conversion led to a degree of insanity that subdued her mind and her own personality more and more, the longer I tried to keep her alive. In the end, she wasn’t the girl I used to love anymore. She was one of _them_. I’ve only prolonged her suffering,” he shivers; then he shakes it off by sheer willpower and stands again. “Well, it seems we’re finished here. Shouldn’t we see how Dr. McKay is doing?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The others agree with the suggestion and they return to the bridge, waiting for McKay to join them. It gives them the chance to take a look at the new universe in which they’ve landed. It’s an interesting place. For starters, they aren’t in the orbit of Lantea anymore. In fact, there _isn’t_ a planet Lantea at all. They’re floating in a huge field of asteroids of various sizes – from the size of a fist to the size of a small moon. Fortunately, McKay’s switched the shields back on right after the jump or they’d be space dust by now.

“What happened to the planet?” Ronon asks in surprise.

“According to Doctor McKay, in this reality it was destroyed by an impact, possibly millions of years ago,” Ianto replies distractedly, captured by the majestic view. “All that remains is this asteroid field.”

In that moment, McKay finally arrives and goes directly to Sheppard, who is sitting at the weapons station.

“Nice work, Rodney,” Sheppard says in appreciation.

“Uh, you may wanna hold off on the congratulations,” McKay replied uncomfortably.

Sheppard rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Now _what_?!”

“I think I’ve overtaxed the drive,” McKay admits reluctantly. “Look, it’s not completely blown but we’ve only got a handful of jumps before it’s burned out.”

“All right,” Sheppard says with forced patience. “And what happens _then_?”

“If we haven’t found our way back by then, we will be stranded forever,” McKay tells him.

Needless to say that the news doesn’t make anyone happy.

“So, what are we gonna do about it?” Ronon asks, cutting to the core of the problem. Ianto finds the Satedan’s approach very relaxing. McKay, on the other hand, apparently doesn’t.

“ _We_ are doing nothing,” he replies, his irritation obvious. “ _I_ shall do my best, as usual, and if we’re _very_ lucky, then _perhaps_ I might find a way back to our own reality.”

Ronon shrugs and ignores McKay’s tirade with practiced ease. He’s had three years to get used to it, after all.

“Isn’t it what you’ve been trying all along?” is all he says, leaving the _and didn’t get anywhere_ part unspoken.

“Perhaps you need a different approach, Doctor McKay,” Ianto suggests, before the scientist’s head would explode.

“What do you mean?” McKay asks in suspicion.

“I mean, until now you’ve been focussing on the navigation system, right?” Ianto clarifies. McKay nods. “Well, apparently, that didn’t work. So why don’t you look for a way to send the ship back along the path it’s previously travelled, bypassing the navigation system altogether?”

“Wait a minute,” Sheppard interrupts. “Are you talking about putting this thing in reverse?”

Ianto nods. “Exactly.”

“I just suggested that two hours ago!” Sheppard points out with a smug expression.

“Yes, yes, and I dismissed it out of hand, for very good reasons that are still valid,” McKay replies irritably.”

“Yes, you did, but that was a mistake,” Ianto raises a hand to stop McKay’s outburst. ”Think about it, doctor. Two versions of Toshiko Sato – including the original designer – have failed to make this thing work. So far, you’ve been trying to follow her path, but it’s clear that you won’t find a solution that way. Yes, she _was_ a genius, but you’re supposed to be one yourself, ain’t you? So stop trying to think the way she would – try to think about how _you_ would solve the problem.

McKay looks at him with narrowing eyes. “Was that meant as a compliment?”

“No,” Ianto replies bluntly. “This is a horror trip, not an ego trip. So, would you kindly stop comparing yourself with Tosh and find a way to save us? Please?”

For a moment, McKay is absolutely speechless. Then he turns around, walks to the pilot’s seat and sits down to start some calculations on the control screen. Ronon eyes Ianto with respect.

“That was… impressive,” he declares. Ianto sighs.

“Yeah, well, perhaps I’d have made a stellar career as a motivation coach, too,” he replies dryly and rubs his eyes.

The thought of ending up stranded in some alternate reality depresses him. Of course, the Doctor might find him even there – the TARDIS is know to have travelled alternate realities occasionally – but Ianto would rather die of caffeine deprivation (which would be a slow and painful death indeed) than even _consider_ asking the Time Lord’s help. 

Even if Martha and her special phone weren’t out of his reach. And since they are, it’s a moot point anyway.

“Do you think he’ll really find a way to get us home?” he asks Sheppard quietly, with a glance in McKay’s direction. The colonel nods.

“Yeah, I think so. He might whine and bitch about it, but the truth is, he works best when under pressure.”

“Oh, thank you so much for the vice of confidence here, Colonel,” McKay apparently has better hearing than they’d have thought. “In that case it will doubtlessly please you to know that – in a spectacular feat of multi-dimensional mathematics – I’ve discovered a way to retrace the path of the ship through alternate realities…”

He can’t finish because Ronon cuts to the core again. “So, can we get back or not?”

“Well, not directly, no,” McKay admits. “It’s impossible to calculate the relative position of our original starting point from where we are now, but we _can_ retrace our steps, passing through each reality in turn until we reach the right one.”

“There’s a slight problem, Rodney,” Sheppard says. “We barely got out of those realities alive. If we do not restore the shields to full power, the radiation from the red giant will kill us.”

“Not necessarily,” Ianto starts to see McKay’s plan. “We know that the ship carries its momentum in real space from one reality to the next. So, if we could move into a higher, more stable orbit around the star…”

“We _could_ , if we had sub-light engines,” Sheppard corrects. “Which we don’t.”

“No, but we _do_ have manoeuvring thrusters,” McKay points out. “One long continuous burn along the right trajectory from now until the next jump should be enough to allow us to establish a higher orbit around the sun.”

“So the radiation will not affect us?” Ronon asks.

McKay shrugs. “I wouldn’t go _that_ far, but at least it’ll be not _quite_ as deadly,” he activates the pilot’s console. “Okay, that’s it. Course is already plotted.”

“Wait a minute,” Sheppard says with a frown. “What if we run into those Cyber-dudes again? They know we’re the ones that shot at ‘em, and we’ve barely managed to escape them with full shields…”

“Maybe they’ll be gone,” Ronon tries to sound optimistic but can’t fool anyone – not even himself.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” McKay replies. “Look, time is passing at the same rate in each of the realities, which means ... well, which means it hasn’t been that long.”

“They won’t be gone,” Ianto says quietly. “If they’re there to destroy Atlantis, they won’t leave before their task is accomplished… which means that we’ll be in mortal danger again,” he looks at McKay gravely. “To get past the Cybermen, we’re gonna need sub-light engines. Do you think you’ll be able to fix them in time?”

“I don’t know,” McKay admits. “I haven’t had the time to check it out. I’m sorry I can’t do ten things at once, and the drive is my first priority. I already told you, it’s gonna burn out, soon. We have to _do_ something.”

And with that, he storms off the bridge.

“True enough,” Ianto agrees. “Besides, who’s to say the next reality won’t be a lot worse?”

“I knew it it’s your sunny optimism that makes you so popular in Atlantis, Mr. Jones,” Sheppard comments sarcastically.

“That, and his coffee,” Ronon, who _never_ drinks coffee, adds.

“I try my best,” Ianto replies with his best receptionist smile.

“All right,” McKay’s voice cuts in from the drive room. “All modifications to the drive are in place. Here we go.”

“Brace yourselves!” Sheppard warns the others.

They all hold on to the next best piece of equipment when the white flash hits. When it fades, the asteroid field surrounding them is gone. They’re in orbit above the red giant again, but this time it seems a little further away.

“You’re right,” Ianto comments to Sheppard. “He _does_ work best under pressure. He actually did it.”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” McKay scowls. “All right, I’m gonna head up to Engineering and get to work on the sub-lights. No need to thank me for saving us or whatnot.”

“Touchy today, isn’t he?” Ronon comments. Sheppard shrugs.

“It’s the pressure. It has its disadvantages, too,” then he looks at Ianto. “What’s our status?”

Ianto checks the readings. “Hull temperature is rising but not as rapidly as it did before,” he reports. “The greater distance from the sun’s definitely helping.”

“So much for the frying pan,” Sheppard says in relief.

“Yeah, but we still have to make through the fire,” Ianto reminds him. “Should I go down to Engineering and see if I can help Doctor McKay with the repairs?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’d just _love_ that,” Sheppard answers wryly; but then he changes his mind. “On the other hand, at least you seem to have a vague idea what needs to be done. Go; it’s worth a try.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Ianto reaches Engineering, McKay has already pulled out a wall panel and is swapping crystals around in a seemingly random pattern. Ianto, however, has learned a lot from Hermiod about crystal technology, and so he can at least get an idea what the scientist is doing, even if he has no real understanding about the specifics.

“Are you doing a full bypass?” he asks.

McKay looks up at him in mild surprise. “Yeah, actually, I am. Main systems are completely fried; it’s not good.”

“Can I be of assistance?” Ianto offers. At the very least he could keep an eye on the control screen.

“I doubt it,” McKay picks up his computer tablet, unaware of the insulting undertone of his dismissal. Fortunately, Ianto has grown a thick hide while working with Owen. He isn’t easily offended, especially if the offence wasn’t intentional.

McKay starts typing on his tablet, and a few moments later the panel in front of him lights up. At the same time, though, several of the crystals promptly explode, and he has to cower from the sparks. “Oh, jeez! What the ...?”

Ianto hurries over to the central console and cuts the power to McKay’s panel. It goes dark again, and the crystals stop sparking. Straightening up, McKay clears his throat, clearly embarrassed. “Erm… thanks.”

“Perhaps a separate diagnostic of the auxiliary system might be useful,” Ianto suggests neutrally.

“The little grey guy taught you a lot, huh?” McKay asks. “Well, be my guest, then.”

Ianto sits down at the console and starts running the diagnostic. It isn’t such a big deal, really; it’s mostly Earth technology, with Asgard upgrades, not that different at all from what he’s used to from the Hub. McKay returns to his work as well, but something seems to bother him.

“It’s your first mission outside of Atlantis, right?” he asks.

Ianto nods. “Turned out a bit more than I’ve bargained for,” he admits.

McKay gives him a look that’s half guilty, half encouraging. “Look, I am not about to let it be your last, okay?” he promises.

Ianto simply nods. He knows the outcome might not be within McKay’s powers, but the promise makes him feel better nonetheless. Until the alarm begins to sound again, that is.

“Oh, no!” McKay runs over to another console. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“What is it?” Ianto forces himself to remain calm. It’s not an easy feat, but he manages it… barely.

“The drive’s charging a lot faster now,” McKay activates his headset. “Sheppard! Looks like the next jump’s gonna happen a lot sooner than we thought.”

“How’s it coming with the sub-light engine?” Sheppard asks.

“I’m gonna need a few minutes,” McKay visibly stomps down on his own rising panic.

“Do we _have_ a few more minutes?” Sheppard asks after a short, ominous pause.

“I doubt it,” McKay admits.

“All right,” Sheppard says. “Send me Ianto back. I’ll need him at the aft rail gun position while I’ll take forward.”

They can hear over the radio Ronon’s question. “You really think that’s gonna make a difference?”

And then Sheppard’s answer. “Without shields, probably not, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

Ianto abandons his control console and starts running towards the bridge.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He has barely landed at the aft rain gun position when the _Daedalus_ jumps realities again. Ronon is standing behind Sheppard and staring through the windshield. “Where’s the alien ship?”

“I’m not sure,” Sheppard stares at his targeting systems that don’t show a thing… yet.

“Well, maybe they left,” Ronon is doggedly holding on to his optimism. Unfortunately, at the same time Sheppard’s console beeps.

“No such luck,” the colonel says grimly. “They’re right behind us.”

He pulls up the external view on the wall screen, and they can all see the ship of the Cybermen move into position behind the _Daedalus_. Fighters begin to deploy from it. Sheppard touches his headset.

“Rodney, we’ve got fighters closing in on our position. How’s it going down there?

“Look, just give me a second,” McKay replies. “I can’t afford any mistakes now, okay?”

Which is only true, so they wait anxiously. Ianto’s hand hovers over the console, ready to open fire as soon as the enemy comes within weapons range.

“That’s it!” McKay finally shouts. “I’ve got it! Go-go-go-go-go-go!”

Sheppard activates his controls and the sub-light engines fire up. The _Daedalus_ soars away with the Cyber-fighters in hot pursuit. Ianto watches their relative position compared with that of the _Daedalus_ , waiting for his moment of revenge to come.

“How’re we doing?” Sheppard asks; he has to concentrate on his flying.

“They’re gaining on us,” Ianto replies with a calmness he doesn’t actually feel. "We’d need considerably more speed to get away from them.”

“There’s not a chance!” McKay cut in over radio. “Look, I’ve barely got this thing working as it is! If we tax it any more, we’re gonna blow the whole system!”

“Then, we’ve got a real problem,” Sheppard says slowly. “Ianto, are those fighters getting any closer?”

“They’re in weapons range, actually,” Ianto replies and opens fire without forewarning. “Take this, you bloody bastards!” he murmurs through gritted teeth. "This one’s for Canary Wharf.”

The fighters return fire immediately. More explosions go off on the bridge. Ronon glares at Ianto. “What are you waiting for? Return fire!”

“That’s what I’m doing, believe it or not,” Ianto has figured out the quirks of the targeting system and is full of grim satisfaction when he manages to shoot one of the fighters to pieces. “For you, Lisa,” and then a second one. “For you, Adeola,” and a third one. “Gareth, this one is for you.”

But there are too many of them, and he has the gut feeling that he won’t have the time to count down all his dead friends from Torchwood London. The fighters continue their approach, firing all the way… and suddenly, Sheppard’s console powers down, his control screen goes dark.

“McKay, what happened?”

“That’s it,” McKay replies in resignation. “Sub-lights are gone for good this time!”

The fighters continue closing on the _Daedalus_ , firing all the time. Sheppard’s console now useless, it all depends on Ianto now. He returns fire as well as he can but nothing much impacts with their attackers. More than just the sub-light engines must have gone down in Engineering.

As Sheppard and Ronon stare at the wall screen, waiting for the inevitable, suddenly a new weapon soars in from the side and smashes into one of the fighters, blowing it to bits, and a swarm of F-302s enters the fray, engaging with the enemy ships.

Ronon frowns. “What the hell was that?”

“F-302s,” Sheppard tells him happily. “It’s Atlantis!”

The 302s chase the Cyber-fighters around in the depth of space, making a spectacular show of the fight and wiping out several of them. There’s one of them with an outstanding pilot, apparently – the acrobatics make even Sheppard’s jaw hit the floor, and he’s one of the best who’s ever sit behind a joystick.

“What’s happening?” McKay, clueless and frightened out of his mind down in Engineering, demands.

“Looks like we’re getting some help from some friends,” Sheppard tells him smugly. “Guess we bet on the right side after all.”

“Ha-ha, very funny!” McKay fumes.

At the same moment, a voice comes over the intership comms. A voice unknown to all but Ianto, who literally freezes in his seat. “ _Daedalus_ , this is Captain Jack Harkness from the Royal Air Force. Do you read?”

Sheppard exchanges clueless looks with Ronon; then he spots Ianto’s petrified expression. “You know the man?”

“Sort of,” Ianto shakes off his first shock. “Our version of him, in any case. He… he used to be my boss at Torchwood.” There’s no need to tell what _else_ the Jack Harkness of _their_ universe used to be for him.

“ _Daedalus_ , do you read?” Jack’s voice, familiar yet harder, more military at the same time, repeats.

Sheppard waves at Ianto. “You know the man; you deal with him.”

“Of course, Colonel,” Ianto clears his throat and replies in his best receptionist manner. “This is the _Daedalus_. Captain Harkness, thanks for your assistance. You’ve just saved our lives, and for that, we’re grateful.”

There is a moment of shocked silence on the other end of the connection, then not-quite-Jack’s voice hardens ever so, slightly.

“Who is this?” he demands. “Cos you sure as hell ain’t Tosh.”

“No,” Ianto agrees, “but this is a long story, and I doubt we’d have the time to tell it.”

“Perhaps not,” alternate Jack’s voice replies after another pregnant pause. “Well, whoever you are, you saved our arses when you took out the main weapons of the Cybermen just before you did the TARDIS act on us. We reckoned the least we could do is to return the favour.”

“We do appreciate the sentiment, Captain Harkness,” Ianto replies politely.

He’s interrupted by the beeping of an alarm. They all turn to the windshield instinctively and look with widening eyes as one of the fighters, trailing smoke behind it, is making a kamikaze run directly towards the front of their ship.

“Not again!” Sheppard shouts angrily; he and Ianto reach for their weapons controls simultaneously. 

They land harder than intended in their seats as the fighter plunges towards the ship. The rail guns fire round after round at it but can’t stop it as it grows larger and larger in the windshield, threatening to break through it any minute. Finally a shot hits it and it explodes moments before it strikes the ship. Huge pieces of debris smash into the windshield but, miraculously, the weakened shields hold firm.

“All right, looks like that’s the last of them,” Jack says. “So, what happens now?”

“We’ll both go our own way,” Sheppard replies.

“Just like that?” Ianto can almost see Jack’s sceptically raised eyebrow, and seriously doubts that this alternate version would accept _that_ without a fight. Jack _hates_ mysteries. He lives to solve them.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sheppard replies with a shrug.

“Well, the thing is, we do have a few questions,” alternate Jack says slowly. “See, the _Daedalus_ we know was destroyed two years ago in a battle with the Cybermen, under the command of Commodore Harry Sullivan.”

“Sorry to hear that,” of course, the name says Sheppard nothing. “The truth is, this isn’t our _Daedalus_ , either. We’re just... borrowing it for a while.”

“And she happens to do the TARDIS act from time to time,” Ianto adds, and he’s secretly delighted to hear that familiar, trademark Jack Harkness giggle through the comms. It seems this Jack isn’t all that different, after all.

“Okay, I have _no_ idea what that means,” Sheppard scowls. He doesn’t like mysteries, either.

“It’s not your fault, Colonel,” Ianto says with a bland smile. “It’s a British thing; you don’t have the necessary references.”

“ _You_ , on the other hand…” alternate Jack trails off, his curiosity palpable.

“Like I said, it’s a long story,” Ianto replies evasively.

“All right,” alternate Jack says after a pause. “I shouldn’t just leave it, but… I think I can make an exception, this time. Good luck, _Daedalus_.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Ianto answers. “It’s been a pleasure. You’re obviously a man who’d do everything to protect his team; a dedicated commander, and a very skilled pilot, too.”

“Well, for that last shot the credit should go to Lieutenant Mickey Smith, but I thank you anyway,” comes the amused replay over the comms. “By the way, I haven’t caught _your_ name, Mister…”

“Jones,” Ianto replies automatically. “Ianto Jones.”

“Well, Mr. Jones, Ianto Jones, it was my pleasure to meet you… all of you,” Jack replies. “Have a good journey home.”

With that, the F-302s head back towards the planet, and Daedalus is hit by the familiar flash of white light.


	4. Stowaways & Other Inconveniences - Part 2

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **PART 18/2 – STOWAWAYS AND OTHER INCONVENIENCES, Page 2**

Not having anything else to do, McKay comes up to the bridge and takes over the sensor controls, just to occupy his overactive mind with something useful.

“All right!” he says, clearly relieved. “The ship of those Cyber-guys is gone and I’m reading a planet with no energy signatures. It’s the first reality we jumped to. One more and we’re home!”

“I hope so,” Ianto mutters darkly. “I’ve had enough of the TARDIS act for a while. A lifetime without would do just nicely.

Sheppard shoots him an annoyed look but chooses not to ask – yet.

“Let’s go to the hangar bay,” is all he answers.

They hurry down the corridor, in the direction of the hangar bay. McKay leads the way, as he’s the one who knows the ship’s systems best and can override any blocked doors if necessary. And it does prove necessary, as soon as they reach the first closed blast door that won’t react to the usual manual override.

“Why in hell did they block the door anyway?” Ronon grouses.

“Experience?” Ianto guesses with a raised eyebrow. “Apparently, we aren’t the first uninvited guests on board.”

“McKay, can you open the damn door or not?” Sheppard asks impatiently. “We need to get out of here, _now_!”

“Care to do it in my stead?” McKay snaps, and Sheppard shuts up, because he can’t, and they all know it. McKay opens the panel next to the door and tries to bridge over the scorched crystals behind it by swapping them with still working ones. The first few attempts fail, but in the end, the door slides open…

… only to reveal a Cyberman standing at the far end of the corridor. It extends the retractable weapon housed within its arm and fires, hitting McKay, who screams as his right arm bursts into flames.

Ianto leaps into action without thinking. He charges at McKay and shoves him out of harm’s way as Ronon races forward and fires his blaster at the Cyberman. It ducks around the corner. Sheppard opens fire at it, too, but the bullets slide down the metallic suit harmlessly.

“Aim at its head!” Ronon grunts, producing a Cyber-blaster from somewhere under his clothes and firing at the thing from both guns.

In the meantime McKay cowers on the floor, holding his arm that Ianto has wrapped into his uniform jacket to put out the flames. His voice is high-pitched with pain and indignation. “I got shot!”

“Happens to the best of us in battle,” Ianto replies. “Stay put. We need to finish this while there’s still time.”

He pulls a Cyber-blaster from the waist of his trousers and runs up to the other two who’re still exchanging energy bolts with the Cyberman. He can hear Ronon growl in anger.

“Thought we got ‘em all!”

“Apparently not!” Sheppard replies through gritted teeth.

At that moment the Cyberman comes out of hiding and Ianto catches him in a hail of green energy beams. As it reels, Ronon, too, fires both blasters at it, and the onslaught finally sends it crumpling to the floor. Sheppard moves closer to fire a few more shots at it, but Ianto holds him back.

“Don’t,” he warns. “We can’t know what other weapons it’s hiding, and it isn’t quite dead yet. Let’s hope it didn’t have the chance to send a distress call.”

“Think there’s any more of them?” Ronon asks.

Ianto shrugs. “It’s hard to tell. We’d need to know how many of them have initially crashed into the _Daedalus_ , and even then…”

“We’re _not_ waiting around to find out,” Sheppard interrupts. “Let’s move on, people; but give that thing a wide berth.”

They’re about to move on when Ianto suddenly freezes mid-movement, as he hears an ominous beeping sound coming from the Cyberman.

“Bloody hell, it has activated self-destruct!” he realizes with a jolt of fear. The weapons technology of the Cybermen aims at the widest possible scale of destruction. If such a device goes off on board of a starship…

“They have such a thing?” Sheppard asks in surprise, just as the Cyberman’s arm flops onto the floor and reveals a small, beeping, blinking… _gizmo_ in its nerveless hand.

“Usually, they don’t; not in our reality anyway,” Ianto replies, already running back the way they’ve come. “Although there’ve been recorded a few isolated cases…”

“Save the history lesson for later,” Sheppard tosses the whimpering McKay in his direction. “Move, move, move!”

Ianto grabs McKay’s good arm and practically drags the man with him. Sheppard and Ronon race after them for their lives. Ronon manages to slide around the corner and out of harm’s way in the last second, but the explosion catches Sheppard and sends him flying across the corridor, where he hits the bulkhead with a loud _thud_.

“Everyone still alive?” he asks, sliding into a semi-sitting position, pretty winded. Ianto nods.

“We’ve been lucky,” he says. “The blast doors closed behind us just in time, containing the worst of the explosion.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sheppard asks sarcastically. “Then why does that darn alarm sound again?”

Ianto just shrugs. To tell the truth, he’s been too busy trying _not_ to die to even realize that the alarms are sounding indeed. McKay, still clutching his arm, stumbles across to a console in the wall and activates it. 

“Oh, no!” he mutters, wide-eyed, after a first, cursory glance at the screen.

“Now what?” Sheppard asks, exasperated; not so much with McKay, who can’t help with what’s happening, after all, as with new problems popping us as soon as they have – barely – solved the previous ones.

“The explosion’s caused a hull breach,” McKay replies, deathly pale all of a sudden. “The whole section’s been depressurised.”

“Including the hangar bay?” Ianto asks, knowing that it would make impossible for them to reach the jumpers. McKay just nods in defeat.

Sheppard is getting _really_ nervous, perhaps for the first time since this whole mess has started. 

“Our stop is coming up, Rodney,” he presses. “It’s time to get off this train.”

“There’s no way off!” McKay replies with depressing finality.

“Oh, c’mon!” Ronon is still trying to hang onto his optimism. “Once we jump into our own reality, Atlantis will detect us and they will send help.”

“Yeah, but we broke orbit to get away from the fighters, remember?” Ianto reminds him. “If we keep our position after each jump, we might end up too far away from Atlantis for them to find us.”

“He’s right,” McKay says grimly. “Look, we carry our momentum and relative position in space from one reality to the next, which means by the time we next jump, we’re gonna be, like, half a million kilometres out. They’re never gonna get to us in time!”

“We’ve got C4,” Ronon answers with a shrug. “I say we wait until we get back and we’ll blow the drive.”

“That _could_ work,” McKay admits reluctantly, only to snip their hope in the bud right afterwards. “ _Or_ ” it could tear a hole in the space-time continuum, not only killing us but destroying the entire solar system. Been there, done that, not interested in a repeat performance.”

They’re all quiet while the ghost of the Doranda disaster passes over them, then Sheppard stirs again.

“Well, we’d better think of something fast!” he looks at McKay expectantly. McKay stares back at him in shock and clearly without a clue. Ianto raises a hand.

“May I make a suggestion?” he asks politely.

“Go on,” Sheppard replies. He sounds weary beyond relief.

“This is a starship,” Ianto points out. “If it’s _anything_ like our _Daedalus_ – and we already know that it is – there ought to be spacesuits stored at every airlock, for exactly such emergencies.”

“ _What_?” McKay stares at him in shocked disbelief. “You wanna leave the ship in _spacesuits_? Do you know how much – or should I say how _little_ – oxygen reserves they have?”

“Enough for eight hours, if I’m not mistaken,” Ianto replies calmly. “That will give Atlantis eight hours to find us. The alternative is to stay on this ship. I’m certain you can calculate how many realities we’d jump backwards in those eight hours before the drive burns out completely.”

“Rodney,” Sheppard says almost gently. “We all know you’re claustrophobic, but he’s right. This is our only chance.”

For a moment, McKay stares at him in absolute terror… then he nods reluctantly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The depth of space is endless and almost impenetrably dark. The stars aren’t twinkling out there as they would do seen through a planet’s atmosphere. They are tiny, steadily glowing lights in a distance the human brain can’t even begin to understand. Ianto, floating motionlessly in the middle of nowhere, beholds them in awe. Hyperspace might have been a gleaming wonder; here he can see eternity.

There’s a fair chance that he will die out here, in the loneliness of deep space, but he’s not afraid. His life might have been short, but he’s seen enough for several lifetimes; wonders that are beyond full human comprehension as well as unspeakable horrors. Here, at the end of all things, he pities Suzie who could only ever see the horrors. And he pities Jack – _his_ Jack – who can never come to full circle because he’s cursed to go on forever. For his part, Ianto prefers an end that perhaps will come too soon, yet completes a full life nonetheless.

He briefly wonders whether the Jack Harkness of the previous reality is an immortal, too, or if he’s been granted the grace of a normal human lifespan. He’s apparently met the Doctor, as he knew about the TARDIS, but he didn’t react to Ianto’s name. So Ianto’s wondering whether that reality has ever had a Ianto Jones – as it obviously _did_ have a Tosh and still has a Mickey Smith – and if yes, what kind of life his alternate self might lead there.

Has he managed to finish his studies and is now living somewhere on Earth as a young scientist, happily married to Lisa? Or has he thrown over everything and is running a coffee shop somewhere? Or did he get converted and killed at Canary Wharf? Or has he escaped the ruins of Torchwood One and is now living in a mental clinic, drugged into oblivion?

Whatever the truth might be, he won’t find it out. Even if there _were_ a way back to that particular reality, even if he’d be willing – or able – to face the Cybermen again, he won’t live long enough to…

“Colonel Sheppard, come in,” the comm device built into the helmet of his spacesuit suddenly comes alive. “Doctor McKay, this is Major Lorne, do you read?”

The connection isn’t very good, static’s crackling all along the line, but he can still hear Dr. Zelenka’s voice in the background. “There’s too much interference…”

At the same time, the bright white light envelops him, and the _Daedalus_ blinks out of existence. But after that moment communication comes back online. He can hear the voices of Sheppard, Lorne and Zelenka assess the situation, somewhere far, far away, and before he passes out, he marginally realizes that they’re just about to get rescued, against all odds.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Mission briefing is a lengthy affair this time. It lasts the whole afternoon – after Martha has checked them out and treated McKay’s arm – and all section leaders and every single officer participates. Ianto is forced to give his colleagues a crash-course in everything about Cybermen, so that they would get an idea what they were going through. Martha, who’s also had gathered ample experience with he creatures, fills in the gaps. They both adamantly refuse to speak about the TARDIS and her role in Earth’s dealings with this reality’s Cybermen – for different reasons – and after some useless poking, the others reluctantly stop asking them.

“How many jumps do you think that drive has left in it before it burns out?” Zelenka then asks McKay, steering the conversation back to the actual events.

McKay picks up alternate Tosh’s computer tablet that he’s somehow managed to rescue and pokes at it. “Half a dozen, tops, then it’ll be completely inert.” He finally declares.

“Good,” Sheppard says with emphasis. “I’d hate to think of somebody else getting trapped inside that thing like we did.”

“Actually, you know, I’ve been thinking about that,” McKay replies distractedly. “Now, true, the navigation system was flawed to start, but the basic principles of the drive are fundamentally sound. This Toshiko Sato person was really onto something here. And if I could find the time to study her theory about…”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Doctor McKay,” Ianto comments quietly.

McKay doesn’t listen to him, his mind already several steps ahead of the conversation. “See, I’ve saved the relevant data. A few minor adjustments and I should be able to have this thing up and running...”

“Forget it, Rodney,” Sheppard interrupts. “Ianto’s right. It’s a _very_ bad idea… has been a rotten one since the beginning.”

“I’m afraid I must agree,” Mr. Woolsey says. “Some things are better left alone. All right, you all need to rest. But I’m looking forward to read your _detailed_ reports. Tomorrow.”

That last little detail leads to a great deal of disdain and a _very_ quick departure of the rescued heroes. But as Ianto’s waiting for the department heads to file out of the conference room, Woolsey signals him to stay behind for a moment.

“Mr Jones, do you think you can see that those data get lost somehow?” he asks. “ _Permanently_ would be preferable. I’m not sure we can trust Doctor McKay to leave the idea alone.”

Ianto nods thoughtfully. “I’ll do my best. Although the thing is with scientific discoveries, sir: once the geenie is out of the bottle, you can’t put it back. Not in the long run.”

“Perhaps not,” Woolsey agrees unhappily. “But we can at least try pushing the stopper in tighter, before it’s out all the way. It would give us time to deal with the possible aftermath.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ianto promises. He, too, thinks that it’s the best for them all, although he _is_ a little sorry for McKay who’s just about to lose a new, shiny toy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Hacking into alternate Tosh’s computer tablet isn’t an easy task; not even for Ianto, with all of _his_ Tosh’s codes and passwords in his head. Fortunately, every single computer in Atlantis is networked wirelessly, so he doesn’t have to break into McKay’s lab physically to do the deed. Even so, it takes him half the night, as McKay’s up and working on the tablet well beyond two o’clock – probably needing to use up all that nervous energy in a productive way.

While he’s waiting, Ianto writes his _detailed_ report for Mr. Woolsey. He still doesn’t intend to reveal what a TARDIS is; or go into any detail concerning Canary Wharf. But he gives very precise descriptions of both the ships and the looks of those alternate Cybermen. He hopes by God that they’ll never need those details, but he also knows that the gateway between realities can re-open any time. And when it happens, they need to be prepared.

He smiles regretfully at this echo of Jack’s standard hiring speech and tries his luck again. He finds the target still activated but currently not in use. McKay must have been distracted or called away. Ianto sighs; he hates to destroy Tosh’s work, even that of an alternate version of her; he can imagine the ungodly amount of work she must have put into this project. _And_ he feels bad about backstabbing McKay, after the man has repeatedly saved his life. 

But the risks involved are simply too great, and Ianto has learned at Torchwood that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, even if people get hurt – physically _or_ emotionally. He’s seen often enough Jack making the harsh decisions no-one else would be able – or willing – to make.

Now the ball is in Ianto’s court. Now it’s he who must do the hard thing, to sacrifice something for the good of the many. He knows this will only be a temporary solution. As he told Mr. Woolsey, scientific discoveries do have the tendency of popping up again, no matter how deeply one tries to bury them. In theory, it’s even possible that McKay would be able to recreate the whole thing from memory. But it would take time, and in that time, they could prepare Atlantis for unpleasant surprises.

Although… how does one prepare oneself for the opening of an interdimensional gateway? For entire fleets of homicidal Cybermen flooding one’s reality? They’ve only fought a small group of them and nearly died. Would Atlantis ever stand a rat’s chance against a whole _army_ of them?

Ianto shivers, remembering that – by hiding Lisa under the hub – he very nearly unleashed this plague on Earth once. Because of his weakness, Cyber-Lisa nearly managed to raise a new army of those murderous creatures, turning first Cardiff, than the entire Great Britain, then the whole planet into a realm of cyborgs. He’ll never make that mistake again.

“I’m sorry, Doctor McKay,” he murmurs as he sends the Trojan virus on its way. “I truly am. I hope one day you’ll understand why I had to do this.”

The Trojan is a highly sophisticated little programme, created by Tosh with the single purpose to find and delete everything previously written by her, in case the Hub should be infiltrated. It would look for characteristics that can help it recognize Tosh’s work and destroy it, leaving everything else untouched.

Since he and Martha are using various other programmes written by Tosh, Ianto establishes firewalls to make sure that only alternate Tosh’s computer tablet would be affected. Then he waits.

Two minutes alter the programme reports back that the files have been deleted. Ianto double-checks every other computer that uses anything written by Tosh and finds them intact. Only the one brought from the alternate reality has been wiped clean. The hard drive is completely reformatted, so that there can be no hope of restoring the data. Ianto sends the Trojan the instruction to auto-destruct, then switches off his own laptop and rises to leave his office.

For some reason, he feels like a murderer.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Crossing the Control room, he pauses for a moment at the console of Sally Jacobs. She has the graveyard shift this week… not that it would bother her very much. It gives her the opportunity to correlate all the data coming in via long-range sensors and to look for patterns that could reveal enemy movements barely within sensor range. She’s good with the sensors, she’s always alert, and she’s not easily frightened.

She survived the Sycorax invasion, after all.

Of course, the same fact has made her chronically insomniac. Being under Sycorax mind control is not something that would pass without lasting effects. But that makes her eminently suited for the night shift.

She looks up when she hears Ianto’s footsteps and gives him a distracted smile.

“Everything’s quiet, sir,” she reports. As a UNIT technician, she’d technically outrank a simple Torchwood agent, but Ianto is the personal assistant of the expedition leader here. He outranks _everyone_ , except Sheppard and McKay.

He accepts the report with a nod. He hasn’t expected anything unusual for tonight. In his opinion, they’ve exhausted the unusual ration on the previous day.

“Put the internal sensors on the control screen for me,” he says. “Add the lifesign detectors, too.”

Sally is a little uncomfortable with the order, as it means that – theoretically – they could check out the whereabouts of every single member of the expedition.

“Sir, this isn’t exactly... we shouldn’t use the internal sensors that way,” she protests.

“I’m not trying to spy on our people,” Ianto replies tiredly. “I’d just like to talk to someone… a specific someone… but I don’t want to wake them. All I need is to see if there’s still movement in their quarters. If there is, I can go over. If not, I won’t bother them.”

Sally hesitates for a moment, then she does as she’s told, turning away from the screen demonstratively. Ianto hurriedly checks out a particular section of the city and sees with relief that the person he’s like to see is still moving around in her quarters.

“Thank you,” he says. “That would be all. Have an uneventful night.”

Sally just nods curtly, still unhappy that he’s made him break the rules. Ianto shrugs and leaves. He isn’t particularly bothered by her disapproval.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Standing in front of Miko’s door, it’s now his turn to hesitate before using the door buzz. Sure, she’s awake, but would she want to see him in this extremely late hour? Perhaps he should go back to his own room. But he doesn’t think he could be alone tonight, after having faced the worst terror of his life, and having almost died several times. So he pushes the button anyway.

The door opens almost immediately, and Miko peeks out in surprise. She’s wearing a flower-patterned kimono of heavy silk – the same one Tosh had got as a gift from her Mam but never wore. Tosh wasn’t big on tradition… Miko apparently is.

And it suits her. This is the first time Ianto can see how beautiful she truly is. Until now, she was always hiding that beauty behind her shyness, behind the big glasses, behind the unattractive Atlantis uniform. Now she’s looking like a princess from a fairly tale.

“Ianto,” she says in that sweet, child-like voice of hers. “Is something wrong?”

“No… yes… I’m not sure,” Ianto admits. “Look, I know it’s late… I shouldn’t be bothering you…”

“Nonsense,” she grabs his arm and practically pulls him inside, with a firmness he wouldn’t have expected from her. “We’re friends, and friends are supposed to be there for each other. I was just about to prepare some tea. Do you want a cup, too?”

“What I want… What I need is company,” Ianto admits. “I don’t think I’d be able to sleep tonight. Not much, at least. And waking up from nightmares twice in each hour is no fun at all.”

“I can imagine,” Miko shepherds him into her small living room that’s practically empty, save for her desk and a few pillows strewn on the hand-made Athosian carpet that covers the floor from wall to wall. Before he could protest, she’s already peeled him off his suit jacket and vest. “Sit,” she orders, and when he obeys, he pulls off his shoes as well. “You need to relax.”

She fetches a few blankets from her bedroom, beautiful Athosian handiwork every single one of them, and builds a soft, warm nest for him among the pillows. Then she takes off the heavy silk garment and slips under the blankets with him, wearing only a simple, white cotton under-kimono.

“So,” she says, taking him into a protective hug,” and now talk. You look like someone who needs it.”

There’s nothing sensual in her touch – not yet – but her closeness and warmth are soothing. Ianto slowly relaxes in her arms, and after a while he begins to talk indeed.

He tells her about Lisa and how happy they used to be. Then about the horrors of Canary Wharf, and how he tried to save her and lost her a second time, causing the horrible death of two innocent people in the process because he couldn’t let her go. How he still misses her sometimes, despite having gone on with his life. How the memories of the half-machine-monster that she’s become still causes him nightmares.

Miko listens to him without comment, without trying to judge him or offering him empty words of comfort. She’s seen her fair share of horrors and knows how pointless they are. But when he finally runs out of words, she kisses him, slowly and deeply, as if wanting to remind him that he’s still alive and that life goes on, no matter what.

And as her comforting touches become more intimate, until they finally end up making love on the living room floor, for the first time for months Ianto feels something akin to happiness. It’s not the all-encompassing passion he used to have with Jack, but for the moment, it is enough.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The awakening in the next morning should be awkward – only it isn’t. When the alarm clock goes off, Miko extracts herself from his arms and gives him a somewhat uncertain smile.

“Any regrets?” she asks.

Ianto shakes his head. “Someone once told me there’s nothing wrong with comfort sex,” he replies.

It was Jack, actually, after the horrors of the Brecon Beacons. When things started between the two of them.

“True,” Miko says in relief; clearly, she doesn’t intend to turn this into a permanent thing, either. “Until something more serious comes along.”

“Is that an offer?” Ianto asks, tilting his head to the side. He didn’t expect her to be this direct and practical. Especially as he knows she’s still nursing that four-year-old crush on McKay.

Miko shrugs and blinks owlishly. Without her glasses she probably can’t even see his expression from that distance. She’s tousled and sleepy and entirely adorable like that.

“I’m tired of being alone all the time,” she replies with disarming honesty. “And I like you as a person. There are worse arrangements, you know. Even here, in Atlantis. _Especially_ here.”

Ianto knows she’s thinking about the love/hate relationship between Doctors Nichols and Porter and nods in agreement. Sometimes comfort sex is really the best thing one can get in such places.

“Until something more serious comes along,” he repeats Miko’s words from earlier. “No strings attached.”

“None,” Miko agrees. Perhaps she still has hopes concerning McKay. Or perhaps she’s just being practical. An informal affair based on friendship is still a hundred times better than being alone.

They share a shower and go to have breakfast in the mess hall together, not caring whether someone has seen Ianto leave Miko’s quarters or not. Sooner or later, the rumour mill will catch up with them anyway, so the best thing is to be straightforward about it from the very beginning.

Besides, the rumour mill is already busy with McKay’s bad luck. The news that he’s mysteriously lost all data about the alternate reality drive is everywhere in the city before breakfast.

“Tell me, Mr. Jones,” Sheppard plunges his plate onto Ianto and Miko’s table and takes a seat without being invited, “Why do I have the gut feeling that you’ve got something to do with Rodney’s… _accident_?”

“Perhaps because you’re an observant man, Colonel,” Ianto replies bluntly. The thought to deny his involvement doesn’t even occur to him. “Clearing up potential mess is something I’m very good at it. That’s part of why I’ve been selected for this job – among other things.”

“You acted on Woolsey’s orders, haven’t you?” Sheppard asks.

Ianto nods. “Of course. I’d never take the initiative on my own in a matter of such magnitude. I happened to agree with Mr. Woolsey, though – and so did you, I believe.”

“I did,” Sheppard admits. “But _you_ are the one who destroyed the data; that’s the difference. Rodney’s never gonna forgive you.”

“That would be unfortunate, but I’d have to live with it,” Ianto answers tiredly. “Sometimes you just have to do the right thing, even if it makes you unpopular. Fortunately, I still make the best coffee in two galaxies, so I’ll be able to maintain my fanclub. Let’s hope that Doctor McKay will understand one day why I had to do what I did… given enough time.”

Sheppard has his doubts that Ianto’s rotation would be long enough for _that_ , but he doesn’t want to argue. Breakfast time’s almost over, and they have to go. A new day in the Pegasus galaxy is about to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure what Ianto does to alternate Tosh’s computer is possible at all – I’m the biggest techno-weenie on this planet. So, please just ignore any impossibilities or chalk it up to Ancient tech working differently.


	5. Meanwhile in Cardiff...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **PART 18.1 – INTERLUDE IN CARDIFF #3**

Jack hadn’t really expected his moderate clash with the various UNIT brass to go completely unnoticed in higher places. For that, Torchwood’s role in fighting alien threats was too unique… and the toes he’d managed to step on belonged to people in too important positions. So yeah, he knew there would be a backlash, eventually. He just hadn’t expected it so soon… and not in the way it actually happened.

He’d barely returned from London, where he’d intervened on Ianto’s – and, ultimately, on Atlantis’ – behalf, when Emma called from the tourist office, telling him that “some government people” wanted to talk to him. She sounded suitably impressed, so the “government people” must have put up a forceful performance. 

As a rule, Emma was _not_ easily impressed. Permanent temporal displacement had that effect on a person. Tended to put things in a different perspective. Jack knew that from personal experience.

Plus, the “government people” apparently know where to find him, which meant that they had to be ones with a _very_ high security clearance. Prime Minister Harriet Jones knew all too well how crucial Torchwood was for the defence of the United Kingdom, and she wouldn’t babble. So Jack hurried up to the tourist office to see who they were and what they wanted from him.

To his surprise, one of the “government people” turned out to be Professor Malcolm Taylor himself. The other one was introduced as Mr. Chapman; a white-headed, moderately elegant and somewhat self-important man in his late fifties.

“Mr. Chapman is a civil servant and represents the British government in the I.O.A,” Professor Taylor explained, after Jack had led them down to the conference room and Emma had brought them tea. “I assume you know what the I.O.A. is, Captain Harkness?”

Jack nodded. “The organization that oversees the operations of the US Air Force’s Stargate programme, as far as I’m informed.”

“That’s correct,” Chapman said. “Now, we’re a fairly new organization and cannot pretend to really understand this whole alien threat thing. Which is why we, of the British contingent, decided to seek out the help of true experts. Unlike our French or Chinese colleagues, we do not like to be ignorant.”

“Well, if you’re affiliated with UNIT, you’ll certainly have all the experts you might wish for,” Jack said, grinning at the professor, mostly because that seemed to make the man nervous.

Chapman shook his head. “No. We have the impression that UNIT has grown too strong, too secretive already,” he looked at Professor Taylor in apology. “No offence intended.”

“None taken,” the professor replied blithely. “Do go on, Mr. Chapman.”

“As I said, we’re a bit uncomfortable with UNIT, especially where the highest-ranking officers are concerned,” Chapman continued. “They’re a _military_ organization, which in itself colours their judgement and limits their possible actions. We don’t want to become dependent on the experts of the military. We want _you_ as our consultant in the matters of alien technology, tactics and customs.”

“I’m afraid I can’t afford to do two jobs,” Jack said. “We’re seriously understaffed as it is, concerning our increasing activities.”

“Delegate,” Mr. Chapman said bluntly. “Hire more staff; we’ll support you financially, if needs must be. But right now, you’re the best alien experts in the United Kingdom; you and your team. And we want you.”

“I’ll have to discuss this with my team,” Jack said. He was obfuscating, but he really needed more time to think about this.

“Why?” Chapman asked. “It’s your decision to make, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Jack shrugged, “but it’s _their_ lives that would be put at risk.”

That was an argument Mr. Chapman couldn’t really fight. So they agreed that Jack would give the I.O.A. his answer by the end of the week, and then Mr. Chapman left.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“What’s _your_ part in all this?” Jack asked Professor Taylor suspiciously.

It couldn’t have been by mere accident that the chief scientific advisor of UNIT had accompanied the I.O.A. representative on this seemingly insignificant trip. That would have been too much of a coincidence, and Jack had learned _not_ to trust coincidences during his years with the Time Agency.

“Oh, well,” the Welshman said, a little uncomfortably, “I just wanted to... to test the waters. You aren’t the only one who’s not that sure about UNIT anymore, you know. The Prime Minister, and even Her Majesty, have their concerns, too. Ever since the Brigadier retired, the commanding officers of UNIT have become too ambitious for the good of the United Kingdom. So, the plan is to create a… a balance of some sort.”

“Professor,” Jack said in mild annoyance, “you’re obfuscating.”

“Well, yes, I guess I am,” the professor agreed with a nervous grin. “It isn’t easy to break the news to you, considering how much you used to hate Torchwood London.”

Jack stared at the professor in disbelief, his breath knocked off his body by the shock. “They’re planning to reopen Torchwood One?”

The Professor nodded. “As I said, it’s all about balance.”

"But you’re a UNIT advisor,” Jack said. “How comes that you’d know about this? What do you do with the reopening of Headquarters?”

The professor shrugged. “I’ve been selected as the new director of Torchwood London. I no longer belong to UNIT:”

“Since when?” Jack frowned.

“Since you elbowed Mr. Jones into General Oduya’s office,” the Professor said with a manic grin. “You’ve practically created this opportunity for me, and I’m in your debt, forever. I’ve been sick and tired of taking my orders from the military for quite some time. They have no respect for true science.”

“Well,” Jack considered thoughtfully, “they could have chosen worse. Even the Doctor spoke of you with respect.”

“He did?” the professor was beaming like a kid in a candy shop.

Jack nodded. “He called you his _new bestest friend_. And he said you were brilliant.”

The professor actually _flushed_. “Oh, I’m sure he was exaggerating.”

“He does tend to do that,” Jack agreed, “but not when it comes to the human race. In truth, he has rather low expectations from humans. So you’ve got every right to be proud of yourself – you’ve earned the respect of a Time Lord, and _that_ ’s no small feat.”

“And you’ve been a companion,” the professor pointed out.

“Not by the Doctor’s own choice, believe me,” Jack said dryly. “Rather by accident, in fact. But in any case, I’m sure you’ll do well enough as the new director of Torchwood One. Better than the last one, that much is certain.”

“I hope so,” the professor seemed a little less optimistic about _that_. “The problem is, you know, I’m a scientist, first and foremost. I’m not that good at dealing with people. Where will I find the right ones? How will I know they _are_ the right ones?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, I’m afraid,” Jack replied with a bitter smile. “Some of my choices turned out fairly disastrous. Others got the candidates killed. What you need is a good personnel chief. One that helps you to select the right people.”

“I wish I had at least _one_ ex-companion working for me,” the professor said wistfully. “I want the new Torchwood One to be different; to be something the Doctor would approve of.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jack felt the old pain rearing its head in his guts again; hadn’t that been what _he_ had tried, all the time? To rebuild Torchwood in the Doctor’s honour? He could only hope the professor would have better luck with it. “Just don’t put your hopes too high; he isn’t an idol that would be easily satisfied. But if you really want an ex-companion to work with you, I know someone who might be willing to accept your offer,” he searched his phone register for the number of a certain Donna Noble. “Tell her Martha Jones sent you. In a manner, it wouldn’t even be a lie. I only know about her through Martha, after all.”

Professor Taylor left ten minutes later, after having expressed his thanks a dozen times, and Jack couldn’t help but grin, imagining what the Doctor would say if he learned that most of his ex-companions were now working for Torchwood. It gave him a feeling of some small revenge – which was petty, for sure, but it made him feel a great deal better.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Which still left him with the question whether he wanted Torchwood Three to get closely affiliated with the I.O.A. Regardless what he’d told Mr. Chapman, this wasn’t a question he intended to solve on the democratic way. The majority of his team had been recently hired and so couldn’t really help him… with the exception of Gwen, of course, but the last thing he wanted was to reinforce Gwen’s delusions of being the second-in-command of Torchwood Three. 

That had led to enough problems already, what with her cheerfully ignoring orders and messing up investigations and all that, just because she believed to know everything better. Plus, she’d been so wrapped up in her domestic problems lately – meaning that Rhys wasn’t taking her shit without questions any longer – that she hardly had any time or energy left for her actual job.

Jack wished Ianto were there… and not just for the obvious, personal reasons. Ianto was already affiliated with the I.O.A, employed by them in fact. He alone could have given Jack any useful advice, and even some information about those guys. But Ianto was beyond reach, back to that godforsaken planet of his, in a foreign galaxy, so Jack was basically on his own.

The only person he could turn to was Mickey, who – despite his low-level education – had learned a lot during his travelling with the Doctor and during his time in an alternate reality. Besides, Mickey knew Torchwood One from within; had only known for a short time, sure, but even that was more than anyone else save a handful of survivors could say about themselves.

So, as soon as Mickey came back from the latest Weevil hunting (one of a more literal meaning than when Jack and Ianto had gone out for one), Jack called him to his office and broached the problem to him. Once again, Mickey proved to be remarkably level-headed and practical about the whole thing.

“I think you should accept,” he said. “The I.O.A. guys ain’t the only ones who need an ally to balance out UNIT’s influence; you need one, too. You’ve stepped on a lot of toes to get Ianto to their boss… they’re not likely to just kiss and forget it. If you make a pact with the I.O.A, you’ll have the government on your side… and Harriet Jones is one tough lady, for all that the Doctor tried to destroy her future (and _ours_ ), just because she dared to think for herself.”

It was glaringly obvious that the Doctor would never get any popularity points from Mickey, regardless of the current regeneration, but Jack couldn’t really blame the man for that. Losing one’s girlfriend to some alien, then being a murder suspect for a _year_ , just because said alien had miscalculated and landed his time machine twelve months later than intended must have been hard.

Still, Mickey’s reasoning did have its merits, and after some lengthy procrastination Jack decided to accept Mr. Chapman’s offer. It was an act of pure self-preservation. The fact that the decision also got him affiliated with the same organization to which Ianto currently belonged was just a fringe benefit.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The rest of the Torchwood Three team accepted their leader’s decision with various levels of indifference. Being an ex-SOCO, for Lloyd it meant no big change to work for the government again, at least in some cases. Emma declared that Jack’s decision was _patriotic_ , whatever she might mean by that. Young Doctor Patanjali, although trained by UNIT, didn’t really care either way, as long as he got aliens to dissect and to study.

Surprisingly enough – or perhaps not surprisingly at all – Gwen was the only one who made a fuss over the whole issue. She took offence that Jack hadn’t consulted her before making his decision, which forced Jack to bring some clarity into the whole second-in-command matter. Which, again, resulted in Gwen stomping out of the Hub in anger and hurt pride, leaving the problem of simultaneous Weevil sighting for Jack and Mickey to solve.

By then, Jack had had enough and decided to hire Andy Davidson, after all. They _needed_ more field agents, especially with Gwen being completely unreliable lately. Gwen wasn’t happy about _that_ decision, either – she’d so enjoyed her higher status as a Torchwood agent above poor little beat cop Andy – but there was nothing she could do about it.

Jack teamed up Andy with Mickey for starters. He didn’t want to repeat the mistake he’d made with Gwen, sending out a newbie to the field without proper training. Fortunately, Andy had served a couple of years in the Royal Army before joining the police, so he’d already had proper firearm training… and he was willing to learn. Jack had high hopes to make a really good Torchwood agent out of him one day.

That still left the team without a proper archivist, and they’d need to hire more scientific personnel, eventually; both Tosh and Ianto were impossible to replace with just _one_ person. But things were going reasonably well for the time being, and Jack hadn’t given up hope yet that Ianto might choose to return after his year with the Atlantis expedition, after all.

There was _one_ thing that bothered him though, and again, he turned to Mickey to discuss it. Mickey’s presence was a great deal of help, to tell the truth. They might not have any personal interest in each other, but they’d shared the experiences of travelling with the Doctor, by TARDIS, and that was something no-one else could understand… not even Ianto.

“Am I imagining things or is Rhys spending more time in the Hub lately?” Jack asked. “And he seems to do so voluntarily, unlike before when Gwen used to drag him down here.”

“Not in the Hub,” Mickey corrected with a knowing grin. “In the tourist office. With _Emma_.”

“ _What_?” Jack was really, really grateful for not drinking in that very moment. “Are you telling me the two of them have something going on?”

“Oh, no,” Mickey grinned, “at least not yet. Our Emma is way too prim and proper for _that_. But they definitely seem to like each other, which isn’t really surprising if you ask me. Rhys is an old-fashioned guy, a real family man: friendly, good-natured and willing to do everything for the right woman. And Emma was raised to become the proper little wife, even though she’s tried to break out for a while. They’d be a good match.”

“Except that Rhys is already married,” Jack pointed out. “To _Gwen_.”

“Except for that, yes,” Mickey agreed. “But that can change.”

“God, I hope not!” Jack exclaimed in honest shock. “We’ve got enough problems as it is!”

~The End - for now~


End file.
